Cricket na Biscuit

One of my favourite cricket sayings of all time was something I heard uttered by Cliff "Bendel" Edebiri. He said, "Bros, dis cricket na biscuit o, e fit break at anytime". Over and over again I am reminded of the veracity of this statement, and today was one of those days.

After 8 overs of our innings against the Ibadan Metropolitan Cricket Club, we had scored over 80 runs, Tunde Adeoye was on the verge of bringing up his half-century, and Obo was wondering whether we should bat our full 45 overs, or just declare once we were tired of batting. Then Tunde made the mistake of smashing the ball into the long grass, from which it was never recovered. A combination of ball change and bowler change turned the innings completely on its head. Both openers departed in the space of three balls, and Roland and Obo found runs harder to find than Nigerian Satellites in space. A futher 30-odd runs were chiselled out in the next 15 or so overs, before Roland played his first shot in anger and departed to a sharp catch, and no one else was able to get in. 168 all out meant that we had used 28 more overs and all our wickets to double the score we had after 8 overs, truly an innings of two halves.

Michael started well with the ball, picking up a wicket in his first over, and although the next wicket was a little while coming, the batsmen never really settled. Femi Oduyebo was his miserly self, and Femi "Lala" Olayiwole picked up 2 wickets (and lost his car) on his return to the cricket field. Obo came on to befuddle the late order, and Friday Udoh ended proceedings with two wickets in two balls to close the IMCC innnings at 77. On paper, an easy win, but one from which we need to take some valuable lessons.