It’s been an eternity since I last blogged about the trials and tribulations of the might Agent Orange Sports Club. LifeFish readers will never have heard of them so I will provide a bit of background. We are an indoor sports club that formed in 2006. At first, we only had an Indoor Soccer side, but soon after we started an indoor cricket team too. I take my indoor cricket a lot more seriously than I do soccer (mostly because I never played soccer growing up and thus am not all that co-ordinated).

For those of you unfamiliar with indoor cricket or cricket itself, the indoor version plays a lot differently to the regular version of the game in terms of both rules and tactics. However, the fundamentals of batting, bowling and fielding are still very important. We play in a six a side competition, once a week all year round. At one stage we actually had three teams going so I was playing three times a week, but with outdoor cricket as well that all got a bit much.

When we first started out we were in the bottom grade (M grade I believe). The team has changed a little over the years, but there is four of us who have been there since the first season. We won the B grade premiership last season (unfortunately I missed the game as I was hanging out in the USA with the Life Fish). Next week, we begin our play-off campaign to defend our title in the same grade. Hopefully, we can also earn promotion into A grade and complete an almighty rise to the top.

As reigning champions it’s been a bit of a weird season. We’ve struggled to get a team together consistently, having to draft in inexperienced players and never really getting anything rhythm with our performances. We started out the season in A grade, but after the grading period ended we were dropped back down to B/C league. We’ve managed to get a bit of experience back the last couple of weeks and finished the season strong to make the finals of B grade. As captain of the side, I’ve got a few selection dilemmas for the first week of the finals now as we managed to unearth some talent while others were injured and unavailable.

A few months back we ordered a new playing strip. Our previous one was a plain orange polo with our name written across the back. Two weeks ago we took delivery our new ones and they are absolutely awesome, by far the most professional in any of the leagues at the indoor sports centre. I’ve attached some snaps of me modelling it!

I’ll be sure to keep everyone informed of our finals performances via the blog. In the mean time, I’d welcome anyone interested to follow us on our web site, Facebook and Twitter!

We ended up restricting them to 69, I had a frustrating batting performance, but I was probably due for one. Matt Roebuck, a random 2+2er and micro stakes full-ring player that I added to MSN one day and somehow got to play indoor cricket one time played for us again last night. He was the star for the team at the end hit the winning runs and kept cool under pressure.

Agent Orange is currently sitting on top of the table and Ir eally feel good about how we are playing, especially since we are winning gmaes when we are making a lot of mistakes. With so much room for improvement the future is looking bright.

We lost the toss and were sent into bat. Cody and I are making a habit of getting the team off to very solid starts with another 30+ total. Next to bat were Mike and Ben who in recent weeks have been fighting some pretty tough fast and full bowling. Ben excelled with his best ever score, he really enjoyed the bounce that the bowlers were giving him and he had time rock back and slap it around.

Our third pairing was Brad and Cooper. Brad was a little under the weather from an afternoon of drinking and Cooper experiencing his first time in the middle for Agent Orange. Brad wasn’t quite his usual self, but Cooper had a debut to remember firing a 26. The highlight of his innings were the two sevens he smacked back over the bowlers head.

We ended up scoring 96, well above par. Our bowling got off to a pretty poor start though, we were unable to defend the first skin of 38, we let them get 42. Our main problem was a failure to take multiple wickets as well as a couple of sevens that we conceeded.

The second bowling skin started much the same way and things weren’t looking good. Once again Cooper came through for the team closing out the skin with a -10 over which included two caughts and a run out. From that point we were well and truly in control of the match. We started the third skin really well conceeding only 6 runs in the first three overs and taking the pressure right off ourselves going into the last.

Overall it was an excellent team performance as well as having a few indivudal stand out efforts. Selection next week is going to be tough with Paul and Berge waiting in the wings and everyone in hot form it is a nice problem to have.

Our abtting started really well, after three overs Cody and I were on 41, unfortunately I got run out twice in the last over and we ended up making 36. Paul and Ben went out to bat with the job of keeping the runs ticking and not getting bogged down and they did a superb job. They scored 19 runs despite facing the opposition’s best bowlers and I couldn’t have been prouder. With 55 on the board going into our final pairing we were very well placed.

It started disasterously with Berge getting out on the jackpot ball and then the very next ball as well. All of a sudden we were on 40 again, looking down the barrell of a loss. Berge started to connect though and in the second last over victory was looking like a possibility with us needing 15 runs off 7 balls. It wasn’t too be though and we ended up being crowned runners-up for the season.

I couldn’t be prouder off the team and the effort we put in during the finals, despite missing Brad who is one of ours trongest players. The introduction of Cody to the team as well as the coming of age of Berge as an Indoor cricket is heartening going foward. With Mike and Paul toiling hard with their batting I see a very bright future for the team and certainly more victories during the regular season.

The thrill of victory wasn’t without some heart stopping moments though, we bowled first and were set 80 for victory, in the last couple of overs we twice went past their score only to lose a wicket and falll behind again. Then with one ball to go and us ahead of them, I yelled out for Berge to keep the ball out and to Mike not to run. Well Berge didn’t hear the message so he slapped a shot and headed off for a run. Realising Berge hadn’t got it Mike set off, the opposition had a clear shot at the stumps and thankfully missed, it was a verys cary moment though and would have beena  brutal way to lose.

The Grand Final is tomorrow night, so we don’t have too long to prepare. It looks like our line-up will be the same. We lost to the side that we are playing when we played them two weeks ago, but I think we can learn from that game and be a chance of winning it.

The PokerStars Double VPP Promo ended on Monday and I ended up knocking off about 25,000 VPPs for the week, which I was pretty happy with considering the travel I had to do and the lousy internet connections I was on.

Indoor cricket on Monday was a marathon event, but just what I needed to blow off the rust from my game. We played a double header because we were asked to fill in when another team in another league forfeited. In the first game (the one that counted) we batted pretty lousily, but managed and amazing effort in the field to defend a very low score against a seemingly capable team. In the second one it was an eight a side match, my first ever experience in that format. We played it with only six players and ended up losing by less than 10 runs which was amazing. The quality of the bowling we faced was the best I have ever come across, so it was good not to lose a wicket (I got lucky on a few occasions).

Ben and I opened the batting at we put together a mostly excellent 38, despite a pretty close run out call going against me. We didn’ lose any stupid wickets, which was our downfall last week. In the second pairing Paul played his best innings in a long time, he was probably inspired by his batting partner. In his first game for the team, Trevor Gibson smashed 28 and was probably unlucky not to score even more. With the team well ahead going into the last pairing, it brought abck memories of a few weeks earlier when we collapsed to lose from this position. Mike and Gordon handled themselves brilliantly though, learning from our past mistakes and putting together a partnership that secured us the game and won us all three skins as well.

Cricket now goes on a break until the new year, we will be having a few training sessions over that time though. When we play our best I think we can beat everyone in the league, which is exciting. The problem at the moment is that we are too inconsistent and the difference between our best and worse, particularly batting is miles apart.

While snatching defeat from the jaws of victory sucks, there is plenty of lessons to be learned. on the bowling side of things 68 is an okay score to restrict them to, to not take a wicket in the first pairing and never really have them under much pressure until the last partnership was disappointing. On the batting side of things if we EVER find ourselves leading by so much, by anything or just a few runs behind going into the last pair we need to use our heads. Low backlifts, covering our stumps, loud calling and no stupid runs. If things start to go pear shaped, take a deep breathe, collect ourselves and then concentrate with all our energy on the yellow pill floating down at us.

Next week we have the re-match against Jim’s Generics. I’m not even going to consider the notion of losing four in a row, nor losing again at the hands of JG’s. I’m going to be training hard all week and show up with my best game face and I expect it will be the same sort of attitude that will drive the rest of the team.

In the field we started well, winning the first skin thanks to a few run outs and an excellent over of spin from Mike to finish off the skin. In the second pairing we toiled hard, but failed to take any wickets, which is really where we lost the game. Losing was such a disappointment, and we may have to wait a while for our next game to come around against these guys. When it does… I wouldn’t be betting against us. We had a first gamer tonight and we can definitely put more runs on against their bowling line-up. We are having an informal game in the park this weekend and then it is a quick turnaround for a game on Monday, hopefully we’ll be in fine touch for the game, we need a win to even the ledger for the season.