The moment Glenn Maxwell fell first ball you started to wonder what was possible, but in the end the predicted script played out
Melinda Farrell
Stoinis: Oman were a very skillful team
The Australia allrounder also lauded the performance of David Warner on a tricky batting pitch
The powerplay is done. Australia: 37 for 1. Not bad Oman, you think, not bad at all.
From the start you had nodded in approval, all you associates dreamers, as Kaleemullah twice drew the inside edge from Travis Head and pinged David Warner’s front pad. The wicket is tacky and slow and everyone says that’s a great leveller, just the thing to cut the big boys down to size.
First blood to the underdogs!, you hurrahed, as Head drove Bilal Khan to Khalid Kail. When Shakeel Ahmed fired one in at Warner and the stumps lit up, you crowed in unison with the small crowd and the Kensington Oval big screens that screamed OUT!, only to discover the ball had ricocheted off Prathik Athavale’s pads. Still, it was another play and miss. Score one for Oman’s bowlers.
You admire the gusto and commitment of the red-clad fielders as they sprint hard and fling themselves at every ball. Aqib Ilyas‘ sharp dive in the covers that prevents a Mitchell Marsh boundary is so good Ayaan Khan runs in all the way from the boundary rope to backslap his captain and you throw a little fist pump yourself.
When Marsh picks out long-on you feel a little tremor but the big quake is yet to come.
Oh man, oh man, OMAN!, you scream as Ilyas soars to his left and clings onto Glenn Maxwell’s first-ball loose drive. Two in two! A screamer, a cracker, a pick-your-superlative blinder. Could this be Australia’s banana skin moment? Could you dare to believe this fairytale might come to life?
As Warner and Marcus Stoinis scrap and scrape you start calculating. Could Oman keep them to 120? 130? Anything under 150 and surely it’s game on.
In the 14th over Ilyas is hurling his legbreaks and googlies with the same conviction he had hurled himself in the covers. He draws Stoinis forward and the ball fizzes past his bat and barely misses the off stump before Athavale puts it down. Yeah, you muse, he’s got him on the run. It’s only when you see the replay that you realise it wasn’t a play and miss but the finest feather, a chance gone begging. Still, the skipper has Stoinis’ number, surely, it’s only a matter of time.
Mehran Khan is back for the 15th over. He has two wickets already, that two in two. He took 3 for 7 against Namibia and inspired an avalanche of commentary questioning Oman’s decision not to bowl him in that game’s Super Over. Maybe this would be his moment.
His first ball finds the outside edge of Stoinis’ bat. It’s two runs, but another edge will do.
It’s not an edge, it’s a lusty blow and it’s heading straight for Ayaan on the deep cover boundary, eyes on the ball as he backpedals, hands above his head. He takes the catch – yessssssssss! – but no, his momentum sees him tumbling back over the rope. So close. But still, you hope, it’s only a matter of time.
Down the ground goes Stoinis; he has found his range and suddenly the dream starts to waver.
Wham! Splat! Old school Batman graphics wouldn’t be amiss as Stoinis goes down the ground, again and again, but even Adam West couldn’t fill a skintight superhero suit the way Stoinis does when he flexes his sizeable biceps.
Big Papi is in town, the Stoin unleashed, as he grabs the momentum and casually slings it over his shoulder. The most alpha moment comes at the start of the final over, when he drives Bilal down to long-on for what would be an easy single. Stoinis turns it down with Tim David at the non-striker’s end. Yes, that Tim David, the bloke who eats death bowlers for breakfast. Flex much?
Oman’s fate is sealed. Australia have too much firepower and too many runs to defend. Mitchell Starc mixes a few loosey-gooseys with the magic balls. Adam Zampa finds drift and grip, Nathan Ellis is suitably sharp and Josh Hazlewood gives little away.
Starc, Zampa and Ellis take two wickets apiece but that won’t do. This is Stoinis’ joint and he pops his pecs one, two, three times. He does for the current captain with a ball that straightens, clipping the edge of Ilyas’ bat on the way to a diving Matthew Wade. The former captain is his next victim, chasing a wide one that lands in the same pair of gloves. The icing is Mehran. Who cares if it’s a full toss or it takes a boundary rope juggle from David to complete the catch? The wickets belong to the pumped-up West Australian who models on the streets of New York in his spare time.
The dream was fleeting for Oman, before the beautiful brutality of The Big Stoin.
Australia march on, the first hurdle surmounted. Wobble, what wobble? There is only Stoinis’ megawatt smile.
Melinda Farrell is a journalist and broadcaster