After being dumped into the Adelaide Oval construction site three years ago, Mark Steketee can enjoy looking at the new stand
Jarrod Kimber21-Dec-2016On January 8, 2014, there was a construction site at Adelaide Oval. Mark Steketee remembers because that was when he last played for the Heat at the ground. Now that construction site is a packed grandstand watching Ben Cutting bowl the second-to-last over of a run chase. Steketee watches more nervously than most, as he knows that he will bowl the last over.Cutting bowls one ball short: Brad Hodge hooks it for four; Cutting bowls another bouncer next ball, he gets away with it. The rest of the over is some of the best bowling on the kind of night that you assume the game is being played at altitude. There have been 32 fours and 21 sixes to this point, many bowler assisted. Now Cutting is full and wide, and full and straight, depending on the batsman. The full-and-straight one is to Kieron Pollard and, on the last ball of the over, it goes straight through him. Without Pollard, the Strikers will need an incredible over.That means Steketee will bowl the last over while Hodge and Jake Lehmann attempt to hit 17 runs off it. Steketee didn’t get ahead of himself but he did watch what Cutting did. It was essentially a road map on how to bowl a last over. And, luckily for Steketee, that construction site has been replaced by a stand.Brendon McCullum, the Heat captain, walks over to Steketee and asks what his plan will be. He backs Steketee’s plan and sets a field for it. He doesn’t tell Steketee what to do, he’s very calm. As the plan is partly reliant on slower balls, they both decide that fine leg and third man should be up in the circle, with third man fine in case of any scoops.Hodge will be on strike. Of all the things Hodge has ever been, a power player has never been one of them. But he is a smart player, and an experienced one, he has probably been in every kind chase in every part of the world by now, and 17 runs, while a big target, should be possible against a young bowler like Skeketee.As Steketee runs in, Hodge backs away. “I was surprised that he backed off, but I think it was because of the field we had third man and all that up, so he was probably trying to hit me through there for four.”Steketee was going to bowl wide, slow and full to Hodge for a few reasons, the first being that it just worked for Cutting. Steketee delivers the ball he wants, but with the revolutions on his slower ball it just drifts outside the wide line and is called.The over hasn’t even started yet, and he is now defending 16, not 17.Steketee comes back in again. Hodge doesn’t move much in his crease; both men realistically know where the ball is going to be bowled. “The wide yorker is so hard to hit if you execute it right, and Hodge is stronger hitting over cow, midwicket and square leg if you look at his record over the last few years.”The ball is slow wide and full, it also dips a bit because of the slower-ball action. It doesn’t bounce before Hodge, and he slices through the ball straight to McCullum at mid-off, who is in the circle. McCullum drops it but, importantly, keeps the ball in front of him and they take a single.Fifteen is now needed off five, and Lehmann is on strike.”I have bowled to Jake a few times in second XI cricket and few times in the Matador. He’s a pretty good player, but I knew he was going to back away, and he knew I was coming at his feet.”There is a reason this was evident to both players: the measurements of the ground. Cricketers as far back as boundaries were a thing have liked to hit with the wind, or to the small boundaries. If it was once something done by eye, it is now done by measurement, and all players know exactly where the short and long boundaries are. Skeketee can give the measurements: “54 metres on this side, and about 70 on the other.”With the left-handed Lehmann, it makes sense to make him hit to the longer leg-side boundary, just as he had tried to make Hodge hit to the longer off-side boundary. The one difference is the pace; he’s trying to hit him in the feet. The first two were slower balls, the ball to Lehmann is not, it’s quick and accurate, and Jake Lehmann’s first ball is also Jake Lehmann’s last ball. “It was pretty well executed.”Fifteen is now needed off four.”With Chris Jordan coming in, I thought it’s hard to hit a six first ball, I knew that if I got it wide again, it would be hard anywhere over the rope.” Chris Jordan is a strong guy, and if Steketee gets it wrong, he very well might clear a boundary. And Steketee’s record is not airtight. When defending a total, he has bowled in the last four death overs in five games, a total of 34 balls; from those he has conceded 65 runs. Eighteen of those runs have been sixes. But he doesn’t get it wrong; he bowls a very hard to hit slow, wide, full ball and Jordan can only get a single. “At that stage, I probably would have taken a four as well.”Fourteen off three, with Hodge back on strike.Steketee now only needs one good ball and the game is his. “I was still pretty nervous.” Both batsman and bowler know exactly what is going to be bowled again. This time, Hodge hits it well, he slashes it behind backward point; had it been the short boundary, it would have certainly been four. “But lucky Sweppo [Mitchell Swepson] is pretty fast out there” and the long boundary gave him a chance to make the save.Twelve off two.The reason Steketee remembers that there was construction here in 2014 isn’t that he has a keen sense of stadium architecture. It’s because Tim Ludeman hit him into the construction site. Hodge may not be as powerful as Ludeman; Steketee may have worked out a plan to keep him from hitting sixes; but he has been hit before. But there is no real need to be nervous, as for the fifth straight ball he bowls exactly where he needs too, Hodge can only find deep cover and the match is over. The last ball is just a formality, one that is ended when McCullum takes a catch from Jordan.Skeketee and Cutting embrace. The Strikers needed 24 runs from 12 balls with seven wickets in hand, but the Heat pair only allowed 13 through. It was a bowler’s win. After 12.3 overs, when Ben Dunk went out, the Strikers had 142 on the board; in the next 7.3 overs only 54 runs were scored, which included a maiden from Samuel Badree and a top over from Swepson that finished the innings of Travis Head.After the match, Steketee sits in the dugout, relaxed and with a huge smile on his face, while looking out at the new Adelaide Oval stand, “How good is the new stand,” he says, nodding to himself. “No construction site to bring back bad memories.”
