Miraculous qualification

Sports

Hello again and welcome to another week with the Papua New Guinea Barramundis.
In an ever-changing world, I hope everyone has had a safe week and is listening to the instructions from the Government as we tackle this coronavirus crisis head on.
Last week, we talked about the World Cup qualifiers in Dubai and this week, I wanted to finish the story of the second half of that tournament.
Our last two round fixtures were against Singapore and Kenya, and both games that we expected to win.
Singapore had a good start to the tournament but had dropped off and we were able to give them a belting by 43 runs built on another solid batting display from our openers Tony Ura and Assad Vala, and a great partnership to finish the innings of 79 between Charles Amini Jr and Kipling Doriga.
This partnership was most pleasing as we had challenged Kipling to deliver more with the bat that morning as I had not been happy with his batting and needed to see more. He responded well with a score of 43 not out off 27 balls.
Kipling is the energy and fun of our group. I call him our village clown and he is exactly that our village clown and we love everything that he brings to the group.
He provides the energy and fun to the warm-ups and training sessions, and leads with any running and fitness work.
He is established in the team and I need him to become a leader with the bat now.
We bowled well with Damian Ravu taking 4/18 off his four overs and helping us to restrict Singapore to 137/9 off their 20 overs.
The fielding was excellent as usual and we cruised through knowing we just had to beat Kenya and we would be on our way to the World Cup.
As a group, we talked about not getting ahead of ourselves and just focusing on the next ball and keep doing your jobs. I am not sure the batters were listening.
Six overs in and we were 6/19. Statistics tell you that if you lose more than two wickets in the power play you lose at least 80 per cent of games. Not sure anyone has done them for six wickets.
Was it nerves? Did the boys relax? Were they thinking about the World Cup already? I don’t know but we had put ourselves into a very bad position.
What happened after that should go down in PNG sporting folklore.
Sese Bau, as he had done in Namibia, and Norman Vanua then batted with smarts and power to put on an 80-run partnership with Vanua making 54 off 48 and Bau 17. Jason KIla made 12 off seven to steer us to 118. We had a total and one of the best bowling and fielding units in the tournament.
Kenya raced to 2/40 at the end of the power play and we were in trouble but skipper Vala came on and took 3/7 off four overs and with Nosaina Pokana three, Vanua and Ravu two each we bowled Kenya out for 73.
Amini did not get wickets but bowled his four overs for 11 which went a long way towards building pressure at the other end.
To fight back from 6/19 and win the game by 45 runs was incredible and we knew then that we were pretty much on our way to the World Cup.
We sat and watched the Netherlands-Scotland fixture knowing that the game only needed to go to 12 overs in the second innings for us to go straight through.
When that ball was bowled, the balcony erupted and we knew the hard work had paid off.
As a team, we celebrated well into the night and those stories are for another time.
But I can tell you that as a coach and a player this is one of my most favourite moments that I have had in the game and I could not be more proud of my players.
Until next week, stay safe and look after your mates.

Cheers,
Joe