on the 30th September 2022, the Plough Islands Gazette wrote:ANAIAN O.D.C.C.: TYRIE, SHAUNA WEAVER HELP FOXES REGISTER FIRST WIN
by Denis Wormwood, Sporting Correspondent, on the Coal Coast
After a difficult start to the second Anaian One-Day Cricket Championships in StrayaRoos, the Plough Islands finally settled some nerves for themselves and the hundred and forty thousand Islanders following their progress as Kevin Laing's team narrowly defeated the hosts on the Coal Coast tonight. The Foxes had been struggling after suffering defeats in their first two games of the competition, leading head coach Lourens Hendricks to remodel the playing XI extensively prior to today's match. It was ultimately a narrowly missed hat trick from 20-year-old part-time legspinner Arnold Tyrie, who took three wickets in four balls, and a typically measured batting performance from Shauna Weaver that helped the Plough Islands turn their fortunes around at the Coal Coast Stadium.
The match had hitherto been following a familiar, and unwelcome, pattern; after the reigning multiversal champions opened the tournament with a one-wicket defeat to Featherstonehaugh Cholmondeley, and followed that up with Monday's humiliation at the hands of Uppen Nasa, the Plough Islands were struggling to defend a target of 304 from a rampant StrayaRoos side on their home ground. Captain John Philippe had led the way with a steady sixty, sharing a half-century opening stand with Adam Jones, and wickets were few and far between for the Foxes spinners.
Tyrie had bowled four relatively expensive overs earlier in the innings, and Laing had brought him back into the attack in an attempt to force a breakthrough; all-rounder Daniel Bradman and wicketkeeper Isar Healy had been settled for more than ten overs and had begun to accelerate after bringing the home side to within a hundred runs of the target. His initial bowling had been a little wayward, as Bradman got the sweet spot of his bat behind one shot that disappeared back over the pavilion end for six. Then the moment came; Tyrie kept the ball low as it turned, forcing the Roosian right-hander to adjust his shot at the last moment, and a heavy inside edge deflected back onto Bradman's stumps as he was gone for 77.
Out came Asva Xac, the ambidextrous Roosian fingerspinner who had taken the wicket of Laing earlier in the day, and Tyrie's first delivery to the left-hander was a little too full but took a fortunate deflection off the bat and angled in towards midwicket, where a sprinting Catherine Nasrullin stretched slightly to take the catch. The New Dalmatian now had two wickets in two balls, and there was a faint incredulousness in the air around everything the team in purple were doing - after all the Foxes had been through in StrayaRoos, now, here, against the hosts, there surely would not now be a hat-trick from a part-time legspinner. Tyrie was shaking his head before he came in to bowl at new batter Josh Jonassen, and the hat-trick ball was even fuller than the last; and Jonassen blocked it out safely. There was a groan around the lower bowl of the cavernous stadium as some of the energy dissapated, but it came roaring back as the last ball of the over drifted around Jonassen and clipped the top of off stump, and Tyrie had three wickets in four balls.
When Healy was narrowly run out the next over - Bleasdale's gloves only just breaking the wicket as the batters scrambled for a second run - the balance of the game had shifted dramatically, and where the Roosians had been in a good position, with a set partnership and plenty of time to close on the total, they were now eight wickets down and in need of something special. With less than fifty runs needed, John Anderson and Soa Molineux gave it their best shot, leaving few opportunities untouched to score runs, but the hack and slash approach to chasing has its disadvantages; Molineux was lucky to catch Bleasdale unawares when a thin edge off Tyrie squirmed out of the grip of the Plough Islands wicketkeeper and trickled for four. The veteran bowler was not so fortunate the next over, when a sharply turning Naomi Salisbury delivery came straight to Andrew Weaver at chest height, and the situation had become desperate for StrayaRoos.
Anderson held on, with Luca Livingstone holding down the other end, and for two overs was able to eke out what runs he could and keep the runs required ticking further and further down, and Roosian hopes of a victory alive. Then Salisbury sent down a shorter ball that was worked away to square leg, and Anderson opted to return for two just as Sarah Ashe scooped up the ball and prepared to throw. Anderson dived, but the aim of the New Hibernian was true, and it was all over thirty-two runs short of the Foxes' total. It had been an odd victory - apart from Tyrie, none of the Plough Islander bowlers had taken more than one wicket - but, given the circumstances of the previous few days, the visitors were happy to have anything to celebrate at all.
Even before the chase had started, there was a lingering uncertainty in the Foxes' body language, reflective of a feeling that perhaps their innings was a few dozen runs short of par. It had started inauspiciously, with Andrew Weaver - replacing the injured Brett Scarbeck at the top of the order - edging the very first ball of the match straight to Healy, and had it not been for his sister Shauna, the Plough Islands would have had to defend a far smaller total. As she has done so often though, Shauna excelled under pressure, holding firm against the aggressive Roosian bowling before opening her wrists a little and anchoring a series of stands with Audrey Leggett, Tyrie, and Laing, batting increasingly aggressively and fluently and refusing to be shaken when her partners fell.
Possibly the most impressive partnership Weaver enjoyed as she rebuilt the Plough Islander innings was the 58 runs she shared with Nasrullin, the Sutton & Avalon left-hander making her senior international debut after a period of time spent out of cricket altogether after becoming a mother in late 2019. If Nasrullin was at all awed by the occasion, this certainly did not show on the outside, as she settled almost immediately at the crease and blazed her way to a boundary-peppered 40 in just 23 balls.
Both batters, though, fell within the same Molineux over; Weaver had looked set for what would have been an eleventh One Day International century when she was run out by a matter of centimetres at the non-striker's end, and Nasrullin was dismissed by a fantastic diving catch from Tui just short of the boundary rope. Dimitry Andreyev followed shortly afterwards - trapped plumb in front by the buoyant Molineux - and it seemed for a moment that the events of the last few days might repeat themselves and see the Plough Islands skittled for less than 250. However, Bleasdale and Ashe proved reliable and steadfast, and their unbroken 98-run stand saw the Foxes through to the end of the innings, with Bleasdale providing useful late firepower in the shape of a 69 that included three sixes.
The game had proven something of an emotional wringer for everyone involved, whether playing or just watching, and a visibly jubilant Laing was quick to praise Tyrie and Weaver after the last wicket fell; "everyone in the team was wonderful and played their part, but cricket can turn on individual performances and you wonder what would have happened if Arnold had not taken those wickets, or Shauna had been out earlier on...I am very happy though, StrayaRoos made us work very hard to defend the total even with the good fortune that we had!". (Tyrie, for his part, was almost too stunned to comment - the New Dalmatian observing that "maybe it is just as well the hat trick ball went wrong, or I might have had a heart attack!") Laing also expressed some hope that the result would mark the turning point of the Foxes' fortunes; "It has definitely not been ideal, to understate it a little bit, but I always knew that we were capable of this sort of performance. We are definitely not out of the competition, though, and there are still three matches left to go..."
Perhaps understandably, though, everybody was still highly cautious about what lay ahead. "Ag, man, we've been burned once, burned twice,", Hendricks explained to this writer, "I am not gonna let us be burned a third time. We are glad that we have this win on the board but we need to give ourselves the best possible chance of making it out of the group stage, starting on Sunday". This may have been a boost to the Plough Islands after a difficult start to the tournament, but time will tell whether this has just been an isolated ray of light or the start of a cricketing spring.
PLOUGH ISLANDS CRICKET ASSOCIATION
XI FOR ANAIA O.D.C.C. VS. F'H-C'LY
PLAYER BAT BOW
#13 ANL Weaver RHB
#7 AC Leggett RHB RLB
#14 SLC Weaver RHB RLB
#12 ADM Tyrie RHB RLB
#1 KCT Laing (c) RHB RMD
#9 ES Nasrullin LHB
#5 TM Bleasdale (w) RHB
#2 DV Andreyev RHB RFM
#3 S Ashe RHB ROB
#15 SH Wilson RHB ROB
#10 NA Salisbury LHB SLA
