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In the beginning, Sydney had Kurtis Patterson and Jos Buttler. And then the maiden began.
Billy Stanlake and Michael Neser had each managed to bowl two overs that were inoffensive to the entire human race. It was off the fifth over, from Rashid Khan, that Patterson had hit successive boundaries that suggested that the left-hander might have a night that would break the run chase, having already been dropped by Ben Laughlin.
With the last over of the Powerplay coming up, the Thunder were 0-42 and 117 runs away from being able to farewell Buttler a winner.
Then the Englishman ran not into an airport security officer, but a bowler determined to act like one on the scent of a criminal: Peter Siddle.
Siddle has never viewed by Australia in the T20 format as a first team pick. If he gets picked in the T20 series involving Australia, England and New Zealand, that will still be the case. On current form, he should be at least considered. H
e normally flies under the radar compared to Stanlake and Rashid Khan, and even in comparison with Neser and Laughlin at times, but opposition teams have a hard time lining him up.
From the over that finished the Powerplay, the Strikers commanded the match. Rashid Khan’s googly bowled Buttler next over, but wickets were not the immediate problem, it was the runs.
Patterson and Shane Watson batted together for four overs, only scoring 16 runs and in units of one. The younger man demonstrates some of the older man’s flaws when Watson was at Patterson’s age, in finding that balance between different types of scoring shots. Even watching someone like Wells, there is not the same struggle to minimise dots for as long as what Patterson has.
Watson broke the boundary drought in Callum Ferguson’s presence but could manage little else, being dismissed at the start of the 14th over. The run rate required was beyond 12 an over for the first time in the chase, and the one man with a proven track record of being able to score at that speed for that length of time had just gone, like Hamlet having to go home before the scene in which he dies.
The next few overs was a whole bunch of wickets, dots and runs dribbling out like the last bit of soy sauce in those tiny fish bottles. It was so boring I started talking to a friend on Facebook during that time and frankly cannot give a greater description of the action than that.
As the tension in the match started to turn cold, Ben Rohrer decided to put it in the microwave by hitting a three successive sixes off Laughlin, in an over that contained an uncharacteristic lack of variation. Almost by accident, Neser managed to rip the plug out of its socket. The ball itself was similar to the ones feeding Rohrer’s sixes, but the result wasn’t, and Laughlin made amends by measuring the catch perfectly on the boundary.
He who was a faithful witness to all these things says, “Yes, I am leaving now!”
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