If one could discern any smiles in the Singapore camp on the Sunday morning, it was on Shoib’s face – for he was the one who always said that Chelsea would win the FA cup finals the previous night. But one heard that almost none of the boys were interested in watching the game, as they had other more important and pressing things to consider and be concerned about at the happenings at Kirara Oval rather than the new Wembley stadium.
The game plan was simple for both the teams. For Malaysia, get the remaining wickets fast and furious; contain the target to less than 250 and then go for victory. For Singapore, occupy the crease; score runs at a reasonable clip; get the target to 275+ with enough time to bowl out Malaysia. As an onlooker, you could not have asked for more. And I am sure that draw was not in the minds of neither skipper.
It looked like Singapore’s plan would succeed after they had safely negotiated Suresh’s first spell in the morning. But then bad habits die hard. First it was Dharmichand, who decided to take on Shukri – Shukri bowled admirably in the second innings by keeping the batsmen honest, got deceived and gave Shafiq the third stumping of the game.
In walked first innings rear-guard man Arun to join Munish. Munish sensed that he would go for the kill and scored a six. And when he tried to repeat the stroke against the wily Shukri – you guessed it, he got stumped!!! Fourth stumping for young Shafiq in the same innings. Statisticians are going to have a field day. It was also his fifth dismissal of the innings and you could hear the boy jumping and pleading everyone to get him one dismissal to create a record of six in one innings.
Arun succumbed to the pressure of Eszrafiq; Shoib and Manoj puttered around for a while before Suresh returned to end the misery for Shoib by getting him to nick to in-cloud-nine-Shafiq.
Singapore ended with a disappointing 213, setting a target of 241 to Malaysia in a possible 77 overs. A shade over three runs an over. With no devils in the wicket except for the odd one turning slowly, you could guess which dressing room was happier at the innings-change.
For Singapore, the pre-lunch period of 40 minutes was crucial and they needed to take a wicket or two to put the pressure on Malaysia. But Rakesh and Suhan came back with different intentions and played sensible cricket through and through. Rakesh was the more aggressive of the two and when he slashes, he usually throws the kitchen sink at it. One such case was a hard chance to the first slip and there was another chance off a no-ball. The bowler to suffer on both occasions was Arun, who probably bowled the fastest spell by a bowler from either side in the match during that period. All said and done, Malaysia went into have a good lunch with all wickets intact and less than two hundred runs to win the game – don’t even count the overs remaining.
Post-lunch, Chaminda tried different combinations but to no avail. The two openers played sensible cricket much to the delight of the small but very vocal supporter group consisting of girls from Malaysian Air Force, ex-internationals, and other well-wishers. Each run was greeted with thunderous applause and each boundary was treated as if it was the winning shot. And you can imagine their happiness when the two crossed the century mark for the opening wicket. Finally after infinite permutations and combinations Chaminda got it right when he let Dharmi bowl from the road-end. Suhan Kumar who had batted so well in the first innings as well, played across to a straight one from Dharmi and was adjudged LBW to open the gates for Singapore.
The next batsman Suriaprakash followed soon after in identical fashion. From a strong 107/0, Malaysia had slipped to 109/2. With plenty of overs and strong batsmen to come in, it was still the hosts’ game to win or lose, but one could sense a flutter or two in the Malay camp.
The portly Eszrafiq started off aggressively and scored shots and runs at will all round the wicket. With the score at 170/2 and 30 overs remaining to score the 70-odd runs, Singapore should have ideally thrown in the towel.
But that did not happen.Shoib Razak, who was in the middle of an interesting and I should say, INSPIRING spell of reverse swing and plan, decided to start bowling a couple of feet outside the off-stump to Eszrafiq banking on the youngster’s aggression to yield a mistake. Yield it did and how the match turned on that moment!?!
After having pushed a few of those deliveries powerfully to the fielders in the off-side cordon, Eszrafiq chose to change the angle of his stroke to break the shackles. But the additional swing that got imparted on the old ball, made it move the additional inch or so. The resulting half-drive, half-edge flew to the point-gully region where Christopher Janik made no mistake and one could sense Singapore smelling blood. (170/3)
At the other end, Rakesh completed his well deserved century including that memorable six of a Chaminda bouncer, which went miles into the nets.
The new batsman was Krishnamurthy who has frustrated Singapore many a time with his timely cameos to snatch victory from defeats. Sunday was not to be one of those days; in the middle of a dream spell, Dharmi held one back and Krishna could only half check his drive and the resulting catch was smartly taken by the bowler one-handed and inches off the ground. (179/4)
Anuar, who did not field for the entire second innings came out and returned to the pavilion promptly. With no feet movement, he wafted at a Shoib-lolly-pop outside the off-stump and Chetan behind the stumps gobbled it up neatly. (181/5)
Still it was Malaysia’s game as there was the centurion Rakesh batting beautifully when Suresh Navaratnam, the first innings hero for Malaysia strode in.
Chetan behind the stumps was exhorting Shoib to get the new man first ball. One felt that it was more bluster and more hope than any real possibility. But what is life when hope does not get converted into a possibility? Shoib, who until then has been bowling two feet outside the off-stump and induced false shots from batsmen decided to come to the party big time.
The ball he chose to come in with was one of the rare beauties – an in-swinging yorker. Suresh failed to negotiate it completely and ended up getting clean bowled. And you could have heard Shoib’s roar in Kallang! (181/6)
Within a span of five balls, three wickets had fallen and now it was the Singapore contingent, consisting of a grand total of 17 people: 14 players, one coach, one manager and one trainer, which was the loudest.
Malaysia skipper Vishnu came in and played for a few overs. There was one sweet lofted drive off Shoib to settle some nerves. But with the score at 201 in the 59th over, he decided to have a go at Dharmi and promptly holed out to Arun Vijayan in the deep-mid-wicket region. The gasp of despair from the stands was understandable, as Vishnu along with Rakesh could have taken Malaysia to the victory easily. And what followed was even more disastrous. Three balls later, Rakesh who had lived by the sword, perished when he tried to force a cut through the slips by feathering a nick to the jubilant Chetan. (201/8) That gave Dharmi a well-deserved five-for against all odds.
A word about Dharmi’s bowling here; after an indifferent bowling effort by his high standards in the first innings, he came back strongly in the second innings. There was the flight, variation of lengths, the straighter ones, the loop, the aggression, the cunning. It was a pure delight to watch the master at work.
Darvin Muralitharan and Shafiq decided to play on. One has to remember that these two youngsters scored a combined 38 runs in the first innings with their clever placements and some audacious strokes. Shafiq proved that the first innings was no flash in the pan when he cover-drove Shoib for a boundary.
But it was not to be Malaysia’s day when in the first over of the last hour of play, Darvin played a good sweep off Dharmi, only to discover that he had dislodged the bails while completing the stroke. Hit wicket! (212/9)
Singapore sensing that history is there to be made, brought in Arun Vijayan to ‘express’ things out. Of the third ball of his innings, exactly at 17:34 pm on May 20th 2007, Arun trapped Malaysia no. 11 batsman Shukri LBW and the celebrations began right in earnest on the field itself.
The ebullient Singapore wicket-keeper Chetan Suryavanshi said later that he had shed tears only once on the cricket field before this day. And this victory definitely brought tears to not only his eyes but also to the other players and team officials of Singapore.
For the statistically minded, in the end, Singapore won the game by 27 runs exactly the number of runs it scored as the first innings lead.
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