Captain Gurbutt leads Pirates to victory over undefeated Sutton

The Pirates report for this week starts on the Friday evening with a desperate trip around junior training to search for a parent to be the 11th player in our team, having been cruelly abandoned by Manoj who decided 3s cricket was more important to him than his pirate brethren (i've even heard he was supporting Belgium on Thursday!).
Andy Baldock bravely answered the call to arms, and we had 11, despite it being somewhat of a promotion from his regular spot in the Vikings.
The game started well for once with the skipper winning the toss for the the first time this season and choosing to bat first.
Rhys Fletcher and Tyler Shoare opened the batting and for once Rhys was not the sleepiest man on the pitch, Tyler having had 1 hours sleep after his prom, had done well to turn up at all.
Rhys and Tyler started well, building slowly but confidently until Tyler was clean bowled in the 7th over with the score on 16. Rhys and Matt Loft then added another 20 for the next wicket in 5 overs before Matt was caught behind (although he claims he got nowhere near it). This brought captain Ross Gurbutt to the crease, knowing that a big performance was needed and how important this game was for the Pirates league position, he duly delivered. Rhys and Ross built their partnership well, playing themselves in at first and knocking singles to the gaps in the field and then later unleashing some big booming cover drivers. Shortly before the second drinks break, after 21 overs of their partnership, the skipper reached his 50 to cheers and applause from the boundary. When drinks were taken, the Pirates were 116-2 from 33 overs and needing to kick on to ensure that the well built base wasn't wasted. Rhys fell shortly after drinks, chopping one on to his stumps trying to accelerate after a well built innings, agonisingly 6 short of his first priory half century on 44 and 7 short of the hundred partnership. This left the pirates on 129-3 from 36.1 overs. New South African overseas Juandre Scheepers strode the crease and joined his captain in dispatching the next 7 overs for 48 runs, Ross with some beautiful classical straight drives and covers drives and Juandre with raw power and aggression, both combined with fantastic running. When the Ross fell to the first ball of the 44th over (caught and bowled), for a well made 73 from 105 balls that had held the innings together, the Pirates were 177-4 from 43.1 and for once in a position to truly go for it at the end of an innings. Juandre and new man Shayne Cossey duly obliged and sent the remaining 11 balls for 23 runs in a display of power hitting and fast running that demoralised the opposition. The Pirates finished their innings on 200-4 with Juandre getting 39* from 25 balls and Shayne 6* from 3 balls.
After teas the Pirates strode out onto the pitch with a sense of optimism about their chances of beating the undefeated league leaders that had not been there at the start of the match.
Juandre opened up from one end and Shayne from the other. Juandre's first ball was something of a surprise to us all, but particularly Geoff Chay behind the stumps who had dutifully set up camp the usual distance behind the stumps he would for Shayne, it pitched just back of a length and was still rising when Geoff took it at full stretch above his head. Turns out Juandre's rapid. Shayne took the first wicket of their innings, removing one of their openers to make the score 14-1 in the 4th over. However, Sutton rebuilt and were soon 41-9 at the end of 9 overs. The bowling was good, but just didn't suit the pitch that rewarded spin more than pace, so Ross, not content with 73 runs, brought himself on to bowl off-spin from one end and Shamana Devaraju to bowl medium pace cutters from the other. The results were immediate, with Shamana limiting the runs at one end and Ross reaping the rewards at the other, taking the wickets of their #2, #3 and #4 bat in quick succession to make the score 61-4 after 16 overs. Mahesh Yapahugedara was then brought on to bowl leggies and Josh Thomas for more cutters from the other end. Sutton scored runs off this pair, but Mahesh took the next two valuable wickets, including their captain, leaving them 117-6 from 28. However, as anyone that's ever played Pirates will know, it's never over until the final wicket goes down. Sutton still had two decent batsmen left and were gradually reducing the required run-rate until first Shayne and then Shamana bowled one of them each to leave a tense finish with Sutton 175-8 from 39 overs. 6 overs to get 26 to win and 2 wickets left. Shamana and Juandre came back on at this point and although the boundaries halted, Sutton were still managing to steal singles and keep up with the run rate. Up stepped hero of Friday evening and now hero of Saturday evening as well Andy Baldock, the Sutton number 10 dropped the ball to Andy at short mid-wicket and called for 1, after a few steps he was sent back by his partner, by this time Andy had calmly collected the ball and then as the batsman turned, he threw the stumps down from 15 yards away. A big moment under pressure that made a huge difference to the game. A few overs later however, the last 2 Sutton batsmen were still hanging around and things were getting close with the score on 190 at the start of the 44th over. On the 3rd ball, Juandre struck, not with a bowling dismissal, but a runout. The number 11 had defended a ball that then rolled a few yards in front of him and stopped, he then called the batsman at the other end through for a single. Juandre out-sprinted the batsman backing up, picked up the ball and flicked it onto the stumps. The team went mental, all running towards each other for the biggest "squeeze" of the game. Somehow we'd beaten Sutton, the team that had been destroying every other side in our league with ease. Back to Llamaland for many beers and celebrations of what turned out to be a full-house for the club.