Hiru's Heroics at Harlaw

The Mannofield 3rd XI were hit by player unavailability from all 3 teams meaning that 6 players from the previous weeks record breaking win were missing.
In fact only 10 players were available including two 12 year old's, and 14 year old Aidan Hague making his debut.
Mannofield lost the toss and batted, thanks to the Bon Accord captain for putting us in as we would have struggled to find a 5th bowler.

With such a fragile looking batting order it was important to get partnerships, things didn't start well when the skipper fell to opposing captain Malik early on.
Indy and Hiru picked up the mantle and kept the score ticking over before Indy was bowled by Awan.
Charit (on season debut) offered more support for Hiru who was batting nicely and slowly accumulating runs.
When Charit fell Danyal came in and played one of his typical bullish innings finding the boundary with ease before falling to a rare good piece of fielding from Bon Accord when a direct hit from Malik saw Danyal just short of his ground.
Next in was Richard who briefly enjoyed his elevation to number 6 in the batting order.
With Richard gone BA may have felt they were into our tail but Chandana (also on season debut) had other ideas, rolling back the years he produced some classical shots which included one huge maximum.
It was during this partnership that Mannofield passed the 175 which gave us the maximum 10 batting points. Hiru was still batting brilliantly dominating each partnership to date and when Chandana finally fell in the last over it left him needing a single off the last ball to bring up a well deserved and fantastically crafted century. He dispatched the last ball for 4 to leave him on 103 not out and left Mannofield on 191 for 6 from our 45 overs.

The pre-inning huddle was all about being patient, having fun and backing each other in the field.
We knew that BA would come at us strong and with only 4 recognized bowlers our task was always going to be tough.
Sure enough the BA openers were scoring at almost 10 an over before who else but Hiru struck, trapping Awan plum in front.
BA had already passed the 100 mark when the second wicket fell, Hiru striking again this time via a catch in the deep by Indy.
The 3rd wicket fell when the skipper managed to grab one at mid wicket off Hiru with the score on 111 (I do love a nelson wicket!)
Surely these were just bonus bowling points we were picking up before BA finally got over the line.
Aidan and Charit came on they both bowled well without much luck, Aidan bowling especially well given he was on debut against the premier grades team. Charit picked up the forth wicket with another stone dead LBW.
However with the score on 174 for 4 only 18 runs were required and things looked bleak for the home side.
The skipper threw the ball back to Indy and Hiru and strange things started to happen. Hiru kept one end tied up and Indy found a line and length the remaining BA batsmen just couldn't handle.
He took 5 wickets in 19 balls including a Hat-trick (over 2 overs) to win the game for Mannofield. The number 11 for BA was so sure his team would win that he had gone home :)

Although Hiru and Indy will rightly take the plaudits for two incredible individual performances it was a great team victory.
An unbelievable achievement and possibly our most famous victory in recent time.
Well done the 10 men!!