Middleton's Grand Final Review
Bellfield’s balding captain Ben Nicholson won the toss and elected to bat on their home pitch; one of the most unique pitches in the competition. It was clear from the outset of the match that runs were going to be scarce. The home team made a conservative start.
Mick Younger, backing up from 40 consecutive overs the previous week, bowled a probing opening spell. He swung the ball both ways and was often too good to draw the edge. Andy Kemp, the hero of the good-natured victory over Viewbank in the semi-final, made the first breakthrough with the score on nine. Ashish Nishanth took a diving catch at gully and the earth trembled.
Bellfield’s captain, the most technically proficient batsmen in the grade, proceeded to bat cautiously in the hope of wearing the attack down. He engaged in a riveting duel with Edinburgh’s number one spinner, Ashish, who picked up 3-51 off 19 overs. Ashish tossed his leg breaks above the batsmen’s eye line – ‘dangling the sweets’ as Ravi Shastri would say – from his first over, repeatedly deceiving the opposition batsmen in flight. He was unlucky not to get a bag of wickets. In the final three matches of the season Ashish proved to be the team’s trump card. No other side in the grade possessed a spin bowler of his calibre.
Owing to some disciplined batting, Bellfield’s score reached 47 before the loss of their second wicket. With the home team in a strong position, Ron decided it was time to make a change in the attack. Dave Meiklejohn, sweat glistening from his cranium, took the ball and produced his fastest spell of the season. He removed Bellfield’s number four batsmen with a violent delivery which reared off a good length and caught the glove. Dave looked hungry, chiselled, focussed; a behemoth. He finished with 1-14 off 10 overs. Dave’s life partner, Andy Kemp, took 2-29 off 14 overs, including the crucial wicket of Ben Nicholson in the over prior to tea. This wicket shifted the momentum in Edinburgh’s favour.
After the tea break Mick Younger produced another lion-hearted spell to rip through Bellfield’s middle order. He finished with 2-29 off 18 overs and completed an important run out. Mick willed himself into the contest, exemplifying the tenacity which is needed to compete in a grand final. His bowling improved markedly during the latter half of the day when an ensemble of drunken philistines arrived at the ground with the sole intention of berating him. Perhaps they were fearful of his cricket prowess? Perhaps they were simply envious that Mick had his full allotment of teeth? Perhaps he had seduced all of their daughters?
Bellfield were eventually bowled out for 136 in the 61st over. The pick of the fielders was undoubtedly Pat Dwyer, the youngest member of the team. He fielded like a cat on a hot tin roof. He took a sharp catch at point and produced an instinctive run out to remove one of the opposition’s most damaging batsmen. There were four or five occasions in which Pat saved runs through his desperate work in the outfield. In the end the runs he saved proved vital. Pat is a player to watch in the future, so long as he doesn’t succumb to the vices of 20/20 cricket, left wing idealism or the contents of Sunny Munn’s shoe boxes.
Edinburgh had 19 overs to negotiate before stumps. It proved to be a difficult period for the batsmen, as they had little to gain and the new ball repeatedly spat off the pitch. Tim Freame, Naresh Pereira and Pat Dwyer fell cheaply to Bellfield’s strike bowler, James Webb, who finished the match with figures of 5-35 (and is reputed to have wept into his pillow for 48 consecutive hours following the match). Mick Younger was caught at square leg in the second last over of the day, leaving Edinburgh at 4-25 overnight.
Early on the second morning John Wooles became Webb’s fourth victim to have the away team reeling at 5-28. Andy Kemp strode to the crease, exchanged a few pleasantries with the opposition slip cordon and commenced an almighty knock. He played powerfully through the cover region, riding his luck, and balanced this out with a succession of cheeky singles on the leg side. Andy made 47, the highest score of the game, earning him man of the match honours. He was aptly supported by Murray Middleton – the Geoffrey Boycott of the HDCA - whose sole objective seemed to be to bore the opposition into submission.
Following the departure of Middleton, Tony Zaccardi – John Zaccardi’s grandfather – received a short delivery which caught his glove and ballooned to first slip. Andy Kemp was bowled a short time later, leaving Edinburgh at 8-104. Dave Meiklejohn and Ron Pennefather were left at the crease with the game evenly poised. While no one doubted Dave’s ability to steer the team home, there were grave concerns about Ron’s batting ability. Owing to diminishing eye sight, the lingering effects of a knee reconstruction and the furore surrounding his much-publicised affair with Lara Bingle, Ron often struggled to get beyond zero during the regular season.
Ron and Dave put on a patient, mature, fearless partnership to edge Edinburgh close to victory. With nine runs to get Ron played a magnificent hook shot to bring up only the second boundary of the innings. It was a reminder to all of the children in the crowd, including his son, that he had once held the club record (and had not paid Pete Shadbolt to rig the club’s archives). With the scores tied and Ashish cleaning the excrement from his trousers in a nearby children’s playground, Dave Meiklejohn played a dead bat and called his skipper through for a ‘quick’ single. The ball came in to the keeper. The stumps were broken. Some say Ron’s bat wasn’t within one foot of the crease, others are adamant that it snuck over the line. Regardless, the square leg umpire’s finger remained down. The mighty ‘Burru had won the premiership; not a bad effort for a team that only snuck into the finals by 0.1 percent.