Beckett Bats Hawks to Brink of Series Win

The old cricket cliche 'catches win matches' should have been replaced with 'not getting run out wins matches' as the Falcons batsmen ran themselves out over 10 times in the Hawks 38 run win in Game 4 of the Indoor Katich Cup in Zagreb on Saturday.

The tone was set for the match when after winning the toss and batting first, the Falcons lost two wickets off the first two balls of the match through run outs. The opening pair of Robert Mihaljević and Richard Probst took a while to get their calling sorted out, but a couple of high scoring overs, included one which featured two big sixes from Probst saw the pair rescue the situation to end up with 27 off their alotted overs.

A steady partnership next between Pero Bošnjak and Paul Mušin kept the scoreboard ticking over as they took the score through to 41. Llyod Anderson then joined Bošnjak as the Hawks bowlers began to put the screws on the pair. Regular wickets, including one that would have featured in any 'classic catches' competition when Daniel George standing up close behind the stumps put out a right hand to unbelievably glove a thick outside edge. Not even George had realised he held it until he saw the umpire's finger go up. Mušin joined Anderson for the final partnership and the two managed to avoid losing wickets whilst finding the odd boundary, taking the final total to 62.

George and Jasen Butkovic began the chase for the Hawks against the twin spin attack of Bosnjak and Probst. With the bowlers extracting alot of turn from the wicket, runs were hard to come by. A couple of the big shots saw the pair eventually get up to 31. Vivek Sharma was next in with Adrian Beckett. Beckett, finally batting with a bat that was the 'right weight', played one of the innings of the day. The pair did not lose wickets and scored bonus runs off the wall at will, the two fundamentals of indoor cricket.

With the score on 58, Beckett was joined at the crease by Vedran Žanko. The Falcons needed wickets at this stage to peg the score back but it never happened. Beckett, who personally finished with 29, together with Žanko produced a match winning partnership, adding 39 to take the total through to 94. Although the last pairing of Sharma and Žanko added only 6 runs, the game had already been taken away from the Falcons.

The win sees the Hawks take a 3-1 lead and are now only one win away from taking the series and with it the Katich Cup. All is not lost for the Falcons though as next week will see the return of their left arm quick, Tom Paske, who was unavailable this week as he was in Ireland representing England in Bridge.

A couple of movements in the player of the series table this week, although no change at the top.

Player of the Series (Top 5)

1. Jasen Butković 102
2. Vivek Sharma 76
3. Paul Mušin 74
4. Adrian Beckett 56
5. Vedran Žanko 34