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Wombats Survive Aoyama Test
by Evan Hitchman
The first round of this season’s Japan Cup – Division Two saw the mighty Wombats face off against Aoyama Gakuin at YCAC on a beautiful sunny day, perfect for cricket. Much better than the day before, which absolutely pissed it down from morning till night, robbing our Aussie tourists from St. John Bosco C.C. the chance of a game at Fuji. Having said that they could say they were undefeated for the tour!
One brave Aussie soul, Matty Thomas decided he’d come all this way with his cricket kit, he was going to play a game come hell or high water, and so he along with 10 Wommies, and half a dozen bleary eyed Aussies smartly watching from the stands took the field to face the students from Aoyama. Batting first was Jack and Adam, and the opening bowler from Aoyama, Nakayama, a member of the Japan Women’s National team, making her debut in men’s cricket soon found the Wombats batting technique to her liking, as she raced through the line up! She found Adam’s kryptonite with a slow one, straight on the stumps that didn’t do much, and had him clean bowled! He wouldn’t be the first or the last though as Jack went shortly after and the Wommies were wobbling at 2/14. The Aussie tourist was sent in, along with new boy Aiden, and they steadied the ship, although Matt survived a couple of play and misses vs the ever dangerous Nakayama, but managed to middle a few on the way to 20 before….getting bowled by a girl! Nakayama once again proving a thorn in the wommies side, as she went straight through the line-up with a very impressive 5/11 on debut!
Aiden stuck around for a while, and skipper Ken after also playing and missing a few times, belted a few nice boundaries in an important knock of 38, Bill and Ashley “Rowdy” Canning had a great last wicket stand of 47, which brought many loud from the scorers tent….
That last wicket stand of almost 50 (must be a T20 10th wicket record for Wombats I’d say Kooly?) brought us from a middling 120 odd to a very solid 169 off the 20 overs which should be enough to get the win, or would it? With the Wombats kryptonite in Nakayama opening the batting, along with the bowling, maybe it wouldn’t be!
Aoyama started off slow, but steady and we still had no wickets after 5 overs, with Nakayama and Mutoh looking comfortable, but with the required run rate rising quickly. Joe bowled well without much luck, with plenty of dropped catches on the day from all and sundry! It wasn’t all poor fielding though, as skipper Ken took a blinder, Kav took a beauty as well as did Joe and we even got a run out!. Aiden, Kavin, and Satyam all bowled well too and once the first wicket dropped, the wickets got shared around and the Aoyama resistance was broken quickly enough, with them being all out in the 10th over for 51 and the Wommies celebrating a big win to start their Division 2 title defence!
Beers were had afterwards and plenty of highlights, lowlights and good laughs were shared.
Cheers to the guys from Keio for umpiring, for Matt for stepping in from the Aussies and all the guys, and gals from Aoyama for a fun, enjoyable game.
| Tokyo Wombats CC vs Aoyama Gakuin CC |
| Japan Cup 2023 (South Kanto), YCAC, Kanagawa, April 16, 2023 |
| Toss | Tokyo Wombats CC |
| Result | TWCC won by 118 runs |
| TWCC MoM | K Dobson |
| Tokyo Wombats CC Innings: 169/8 (20.0 overs) |
Batsmen | | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR |
| A Birss | b Y Nakayama | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 20.00 |
| J Jermyn | c H Hamada b Y Nakayama | 5 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 71.43 |
| M Thomas | b R Morita | 20 | 24 | 1 | 1 | 83.33 |
| A Sarawan | b Y Nakayama | 15 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 46.88 |
| K Dobson* | c M Mutoh b R Takaki | 38 | 17 | 3 | 3 | 223.53 |
| M Ali | c & b K Wada | 7 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 87.50 |
| B Bhinder | not out | 17 | 19 | 0 | 1 | 89.47 |
| K Jinasena | c Y Hamamichi b Y Nakayama | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| S Singh | c & b Y Nakayama | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 60.00 |
| A Canning | not out | 23 | 18 | 2 | 1 | 127.78 |
| J Lewis | dnb | |||||
| Extras | (b 0, lb 0, w 24, nb 16) | 40 | ||||
| TOTAL | (8 wickets) | 169 |
| Fall of wickets |
| 1-11 A Birss, 2-14 J Jermyn, 3-44 M Thomas, 4-90 K Dobson, 5-111 M Ali, 6-111 A Sarawan, 7-112 K Jinasena, 8-122 S Singh, 8-169 A Canning |
Bowling | O | M | R | W | wd | nb | Econ |
| M Mutoh | 2.0 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 8.50 |
| Y Nakayama | 4.0 | 0 | 11 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2.75 |
| S Takahashi | 3.0 | 0 | 30 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 10.00 |
| R Morita | 4.0 | 0 | 33 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 8.25 |
| H Hamada | 1.0 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 24.00 |
| R Takaki | 2.0 | 0 | 27 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 13.50 |
| K Wada | 2.0 | 0 | 13 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6.50 |
| T Aoto | 2.0 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 7.00 |
| Aoyama Gakuin CC Innings: 51 (17.2 overs) |
Batsmen | | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR |
| M Mutoh | c K Dobson b S Singh | 5 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 31.25 |
| Y Nakayama | b B Bhinder | 11 | 30 | 1 | 0 | 36.67 |
| H Hamada | run out (J Jermyn) | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 50.00 |
| T Aoto | c K Dobson b B Bhinder | 12 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 80.00 |
| Y Hamamichi | run out (A Canning) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| H Matsuchika* | c K Jinasena b M Ali | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| G Kawasaki | b A Sarawan | 1 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 7.14 |
| K Wada | c J Lewis b K Jinasena | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| S Takahashi | b S Singh | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 40.00 |
| R Morita | c Jewis b K Jinasena | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| R Takaki | not out | 1 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 6.25 |
| Extras | (b 0, lb 0, w 13, nb 5) | 18 | ||||
| TOTAL | (10 wickets) | 51 |
| Fall of wickets |
| 1-22 M Mutoh, 2-24 H Hamada, 3-38 Y Nakayama, 4-38 Y Hamamichi, 5-38 H Matsuchika, 6-39 T Aoto, 7-40 K Wada, 8-43 G Kawasaki |
Bowling | O | M | R | W | wd | nb | Econ |
| J Lewis | 4.0 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 4.25 |
| S Singh | 3.2 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2.40 |
| M Ali | 3.0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1.33 |
| B Bhinder | 3.0 | 1 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3.67 |
| K Jinasena | 2.0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1.00 |
| A Sarawan | 2.0 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 4.50 |
Catches
- Ken dobson – Flying to the left and taking a stunning catch and then showing swag by not celebrating
- Joe – at slip, diving to his right and grabbing a deflected catch off Rowdy Canning
- Kavin – finally took one! ripper of a catch
Dropped Catches
- Satyam off his own bowling…then getting hit for 4 and 6…
- Easy skied ball to cover – 3 guys, all left it – landed in the middle of them! – blame Joe for taking off his hat and not going for it!
Quotes
- “Don’t be late and don’t hit the ball over the fence or I will spear your face into the ground and ……….” – Ken Dobson
Great Moments in Sport
- Yukino Nakayama (from Aoyama Gakuin) – Japan Women’s national team member, taking 5/11 on her debut match in men’s cricket!!
Golden Thong Nominations
- Aussie Tourist Matt Thomas comes all the way from Sydney to play cricket in Japan, only to be bowled by a girl.
- Kavin – 3rd duck in a row at YCAC! Yet to score a run in T20
- Ali – asking umpires to let the bowler ball after 2 beamers as he was enjoying some pace and then getting out of the same bowler
