1975 Headingley, August: England come out to bat...
Ahoy! Welcome back to Headingley in the summer of 1975. We are in the 3rd Test of the Ashes series which is being used as the trial run of Owzthat - where I recreate famous cricket matches and rewrite history by using the old board game to replay the match.
Australia won the toss yesterday and Ian Chappell wasted no time in choosing to have a bat.
And then the limitations of the original Owzthat game became apparent - England bowling Australia out for 220 something in just under 15 overs. It was far more IPL then Test and something needed adjusting.
So, Owzthat has been put back in a box and replaced by the most traditional of gaming items - a single die. Dice? Die. You know what I mean.
An emergency board meeting took place over breakfast and the new rules of the game were drawn up.
Strap yourselves in.
Roll of the dice #1
No run (1 = play and miss +2 = defensive stroke or stopped by fielder)
Run (3 = no boundary but runs are scored + 4 = boundary scored)
Extras (5)
Chance/Appeal (6)
If non-boundary runs are scored...
1 run = 1 or 5 thrown
2 runs = 2 or 6 thrown
3 runs = 3 or 4 thrown
If boundary runs are scored…
4 = 1, 2, 3 or 4 thrown
6 = 5 or 6 thrown
If extras comes up...
No ball (1 or 5 is thrown)
Byes (2 is thrown)
Leg byes (3 or 4 is thrown)
Wide (6 is thrown)
Then throw again to find out how many (using runs rules - *I am not personally allowing 6s for boundary runs*)
If chances/appeals come up...
OUT (1 or 3 thrown)
NOT OUT (2 or 5 thrown)
DROPPED(4 = half/tough/difficult chance + 6 = regulation catch dropped)
If the batsman is out...
Bowled (1 or 6 thrown)
Caught (2 or 5 thrown)
Run out (3 thrown)
Stumped (4 thrown - creative license allowed if non-spinner bowling)
Now, to make it modern when we are playing modern matches!
A PLAYER CAN REVIEW ANY OUT/NOT OUT DECISION
Umpires call (1 or 4 is thrown)
Decision correct (2 or 5 is thrown)
Decision overturned (3 or 6 is thrown)
Everyone got that? Fantastic - let’s see how that translated to England’s innings!
If I tell you that 10 overs have been bowled before rain came in (OK, I had other things to do) but England are still batting then that’s a good thing, right?
Barry Wood, RHB, and John Edrich, LHB came out to face Australia’s new-ball pair of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson.
Immediately, things felt a little more real it had to be said.
Lillee’s first over went for six - 4 singles, two leg byes and a dot ball.
Thommo’s first over had five dot balls, two off the bat and two wides.
Yet in those opening two overs, two regulation chances went down - Wood’s dot ball was nicked to Marsh behind the stumps and he’d have expected to take that nine times out of ten. Thommo got Edrich fending one off to third slip and, again, Greg Chappell would have expected to cling on more often than not.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a game.
After ten overs bowled, England got to 53/2 - Edrich out first, cleaned up by Lillee for 9. Wood was involved in a calamitous runout with David Steele in the following over - departing having scored 17 including hooking Thompson for six.
Lillee currently has 1/15 off his five-over spell and Thompson more expensive with 0/31 and being hooked twice for six and driven beautifully through the covers for four by Steele. Steele has 10 off his 16 balls, just three scoring shots. John Hampshire is also at the crease, coming in at number four - he is also on 10, off a mere nine balls.
Yes, England are going at over 5 an over but it feels like there are dot balls relatively frequently, chances/appeals often enough to feel like something is happening and this is much more like it right now.
There might be further tweaks, however - we can’t judge everything off just ten overs (though I said yesterday no changes would be made after just 15 overs of the Australian innings).
We have about five overs left of the morning session - rain will probably push that through to an early lunch - and we’ve seen 12 wickets fall with around 270 runs scored. That will sort itself out as we get deeper into this project (I hope!)
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Over!