‘Time-wasting' prevents Scarfies' win

The Scarfies were desperately unlucky not to claim the coveted Tea-Cup in a good-humoured backyard cricket match with the champion Otago side in the Octagon yesterday.

Set a target of 139, the Scarfies were on track for victory at the ground dubbed the OCG (Octagon Cricket Ground) until Otago captain Craig Cumming's controversial and cynical timewasting ploy helped stymie the student's run chase.

Umpires Rodney Bryant, a communications co-ordinator for the DCC, and councillor Richard Walls allowed the State Shield champions far too much latitude.

Cumming took an age to set his field, swapping Bradley Scott from mid-on to mid-off and back to mid-on in a blatant move to wind down the clock as the Scarfies closed in on what would have been a muchcelebrated win.

Audaciously, Cumming made a loud proclamation of his team's intentions but Walls seemed unable to act without first sitting through a lengthy council meeting and Bryant was flat out texting.

Given no-one was quite sure what the rules were any way, the tactic was a stroke of genius and crucial in deciding the outcome.

With just half an hour to hunt down the Volts' total of 138 for nine, the Scarfies ran out of time and fell nine runs short of what would have been an unlikely victory and the greatest day of their lives since firstyear economics student Norm discovered Speight's could be purchased with course allowance money.

A lack of overflowing recycling bins, empty crates of beer and overturned shopping trolleys scattered around the venue also counted against the students.

Scarfies captain Vanessa Reddy told a crowd of about 150 lunchtime onlookers, ‘‘Cricket was the winner on the day, and if you would like to buy us some beers that would be nice.''

A flippant comment, but in an exclusive interview with the Otago Daily Times Reddy revealed the true depths of the Scarfies' emotions.

‘‘We're bitterly disap pointed,'' she said. ‘‘But our team played hard and we played well. And we were an amusing team.''

The backyard match was part of the civic celebrations recog nising Otago's victory in the State Shield final.

The team had a more formal celebration at the Dunedin Town Hall at 5pm.

Shortly before the reception Mayor Peter Chin said Otago's one-day title was a victory for the whole community.

‘‘Communities need some thing to be proud of and the Otago Volts have really done something that hasn't been done in Otago for a long time and I think the whole commun ity is celebrating that.

‘‘This is my fourth year as mayor and this is the first opportunity I've had of cele brating a sporting achievement of the magnitude of this one.''