It was a forlorn scene.
The clock atop the famed Adelaide Oval scoreboard had ticked past 9:30pm, while the data below it suggested South Australia’s time had expired.
Tasmania was 3/281 with one over remaining, and required only five more runs to win the 2011/12 title. The Tigers boasted eight Australian representatives in their line up.
Two of them, Ricky Ponting and George Bailey, at the time Australia’s respective red and white ball captains, were at the crease having amassed a 173-run partnership.
Bailey was not out 101, Ponting unbeaten on 74.
South Australia’s One Day Cup title drought, which had stretched to 25 seasons, appeared destined to continue.
But as that clock ticked over a further six minutes, the mayhem on the field below will remain forever in the memory of the estimated 15,000 fans at Adelaide Oval there to witness it. And nor will it be forgotten by the South Australian players, who conjured a tied game to deliver one of Australian cricket’s most implausible championships.
Here’s how they did it, in their own words …
Theo Doropoulos: I remember running to mid-off and Michael Klinger, Daniel Harris and Gary Putland had a meeting at the top of Gary’s mark. And we all thought, Gary‘s got five to defend and if there is anyone else better equipped in the country to do it than Gary, well, he’s not playing for us.
Callum Ferguson: For all intents and purposes, it was feeling like the game had gotten away from us in a big way. You just never know in the last over, but you felt like you were up against it, and they had it in hand.
Cameron Borgas: I remember the mood was still pretty good. The odds were certainly with them but we played a really good two or three years with the white ball leading up to that and we’d been able to win a lot of close matches. We had a good belief that we could stick it through to the end.
Adam Crosthwaite: Ricky hit the first ball to long off for one out there to Theo.
TD: It’s hard to describe what you’re going through. The sense of: I do want the ball, I don’t want the ball. The crowd going nuts but also just a sense of you are powerless. You just have to accept what is in front of you.
CF: You hung your hat on the fact that you’ve got a guy like Gary Putland who has always been an X factor. That’s always been his nature as a bowler. If he could just get rid of one of them at some point you gave him a chance.
Dan Harris: It was the second ball to Bailey we had that shout for leg before.
TD: Putland executed the perfect yorker.
AC: We knew Bailey‘s going to try and hit a four to win because you don’t want to go to the last ball. We always knew that he was going to try and do something. And when he was hit on the pad and given not out. if you actually go back to the vision, you can hear my scream. How was that not given out?
TD: So there was enormous drama. Bailey was hit in front of middle and off stump. They ran two leg byes. It was a real nuance of the game because I think that was the first year the third umpire could overturn an umpire’s decision.
CB: I think it might have been the only season where they had that rule.
CF: In many other years, George isn’t out and they waltz home with a leg in the air. You’ve just got to be so thankful that in their wisdom Cricket Australia had actually given the third umpire something to do when there wasn’t a run out on and he could have a look at it on replay.
DH: We knew the third umpire was going to look at it, so we took our time. And it comes back that he’s given out on review.
CF: It gave us a sniff. But James Faulkner comes in and we all know what Jimmy was able to do for the rest of his career
CB: I knew from experience that it’s hard coming in at 10 o’clock at night with the ball old and grey.
CF: There was an enormous amount of pressure on and a decent crowd there making a decent amount of noise.
TD: Keith Bradshaw, the late, brilliant Keith Bradshaw was the CEO and his idea was to throw open the gates. My memory was if it wasn’t a gold coin it was nothing and I think the South Australian cricket public were starved of these sort of moments for decades. So they filled it out and the roar was huge.
DH: Now we’ve got a new guy on strike and the great Ricky Ponting was still at the non-striker’s end. We knew that if Ricky got back on strike, we were in trouble.
TD: He chops his first ball, a yorker, over Adam Crosthwaite’s head for two, and we just thought that is so unbelievably unlikely.
AC: I was like, are you kidding? The most frustrating balloon over the keeper’s head from a beautiful yorker.
TD: It just had the sense of the good guys, the band of misfits that we felt we were, we’re just going to come out on the wrong side, taking on the team where nearly every player has played for Australia.
CB: In some ways, the fact that they were able to get two was a blessing in disguise.
TD: By some bizarre luck, that ball probably going for two probably won us the game, because it kept Ricky Ponting at the non-striker’s end.
CF: In that scenario, you’re wondering why they take the second. If Ricky was back on strike you probably felt like nothing was going to happen.
CB: That gave us more impetus to go a bit more on the attack. We brought the field in even tighter and went all-in on keeping Faulkner on strike for the rest of the over.
DH: The next ball Crossy (Adam Crosthwaite) came up to the stumps and Faulkner got a massive nick but because Crossy was up to the stumps he cut off all the angle.
TD: Adam Crosthwaite gloved an absolute heater. A wide yorker that he gloved cleanly.
CB: It was a very good take and it was reflective of our mindset to be bold and be aggressive.
DH: If he was back it would’ve gone to fine third man for four and we would’ve lost the game.
CF: That take from Crossy was as good a play in that last over as anything.
TD: Gary‘s bowling mid 130kmh at the back end of the 100th over of a day that was in excess of 40°C. So for Crossy to glove that, it was unbelievable. If he fumbles that the game is over.
AC: It’s so nice to hear the boys say that. He nicked it and it smashed into my thumb. Now, as a keeper when the ball hits you in the thumb, the majority of the time it will bobble out to point and get away from you a little bit. But it hit my thumb and somehow stayed at my feet. Technically I look at it and I did a lot of things right, but I also think we still got lucky.
TD: The second last ball I think from memory he chopped one to Daniel Harris at short midwicket.
CF: What I will say about this is as it was getting tighter and having been a player under Darren Berry as coach, you were always as well-structured and prepared for the scenarios as you could ever be. Chuck (Berry) always had players over-prepared rather than under so we always had an understanding of where we needed to be and what we needed to be doing. It was no fluke that Doc (Harris) happened to be right at that short midwicket position not giving a single.
TD: If Daniel Harris fumbles at midwicket the game is over.
AC: He took it beautifully and had the presence of mind not to throw or do anything silly.
DH: Ponting was backing a long way up and instinctively I went to throw and this little voice in my head just said, ‘I don’t think you should throw it’.
CB: We were probably the best-drilled white ball side in the country. We practiced so many of these different scenarios that we kind of instinctively knew what to do and be decisive. Mass knew there was nothing to be gained at all by running out Ponting so why take that risk.
DH: I’d like to think I did go through all that with that clarity. But I just think the voice in my head said don’t throw it. Imagine if I’d thrown it for four overthrows and lost the title. All those long days at Park 25 with a howling wind while Chuck was yelling at us to get it right. They paid off.
CF: Some of the stuff can come across as a bit flukey but Chuck’s a very good cricket coach who understood all of that stuff.
CB: Once we got the dot ball to make it two off one ball I think I remember saying to Maxi (captain Michael Klinger) we can afford to put a couple of guys back now and just make sure they were 3/4 of the way. They can get one but they can’t get two, so we don’t need everyone up.
AC: We were all very prepared and knew the rules. A tie meant it was ours. We all ran up to give our two cents worth but we were all saying exactly the same thing.
CF: You’ve just got to be a bit careful with how many chefs you’ve got in the kitchen. We didn’t want too much going on around Gary and I think Maxi got on top of that early. It felt like it had the potential of muddling him up and Maxi got a hold of that and made sure it was just him and Gaz at the back end.
DH: Then Ponting took his pads off so he could get back for that second run.
AC: Ponting is the greatest cricketer of our generation, and he’s taking his pads off before the last ball. What is going on?
DH: I don’t think he’d ever won a title for Tasmania. He saw this as his chance to win some silverware. I thought I would lip him but he’s the great Ricky Ponting so I kept my mouth shut.
CB: He was just trying to give himself every little advantage. He was obviously getting pretty frustrated at the other end, and it made for good theatre.
DH: Crossy had gone back by this stage. And it might’ve been the worst ball that Putsy (Putland) bowled for the whole over. He bowled some ripping yorkers but this was a length ball.
AC: I’m pretty sure if you ask Gary Putland if he meant to bowl a length ball at the top of the stumps, it’s probably the one ball he didn’t want to bowl.
DH: If Faulkner hadn’t tried to hit it for a 12 he might have actually got some bat on it. But he missed it.
CB: We had actually pulled it off. There was probably a little bit of shock that we had done it.
AC: Darren Berry asked me all the time. Why did you not run Ponting out? Ponting ran through for the bye and if I had underarmed the ball at the stumps it probably would’ve run him out by a metre. But for me that ball was like a piece of gold when it came through to me. I knew that if I caught it and took the stumps it was a tie. I didn’t care about winning the game. I cared about winning the premiership. I didn’t want to underarm the ball at the stump. If it missed and they came back for a second it could’ve been horrendous.
TD: Klinger and Crossy had the presence of mind on the last ball to remove the bails at both ends and put it beyond doubt.
DH: Maxi was so worried that they were going to run a second while we were jumping around so he took the ball and ran to the other end and broke the stumps. Imagine if they’d run for a second while we were all jumping around.
TD: Klinger then threw the ball in the air and just started dancing by himself before joining the huddle.
CF: I remember Michael Klinger’s little skipping dance just away from the group which was a highly dubious little dance he was doing, if not slightly embarrassing.
AC: It’s the greatest over of cricket I’ve ever been involved in.
DH: Just talking about it now really brings a smile to my face.
TD: It was genuine disbelief and jubilation. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I’ve won some grade Premierships but nothing ever came close to that.
CF: It was a wonderful, wonderful day. Such a great day.
DH: We finished at 3am at the 24-hour bakery on O’Connell Street in our full kit getting a pie and chips before the taxi ride home.
TD: When you look at the careers of everyone else in the team, aside from Nathan Lyon, no one went on to do anything else. Ferguson played one Test for Australia. The domestic one-day trophy probably doesn’t sit alongside the World Test Championship does it? But to us it absolutely does. We were a bunch of players that had come in from all over the place. If you look through our lineup me, Crosthwaite, Cooper and O’Brien had come from different states. Harris was on the verge of a medical degree and probably didn’t need the cricket job, but that’s what made it even more special. A moment that we almost had no right to win.
CF: It was a really eclectic group if you look at it from one to 11. An eclectic group that had been brought together.
AC: Everyone in the squad, you could ask them about that game and they could talk about it forever, I hope we keep talking about it forever.
CF: I still remember it like it happened yesterday.
AC: But I really hope the South Australian boys next week can do what we did and experience something like what we experienced. I only spent one year there but I still feel connected to that team even now. I hope the boys next week can get out there and do it because if they can have as much fun as what we did, they will love it.