Friday
Division 3 vs NS Avengers CC - Avengers strong batting lineup punished anything loose, compiling 8/173 off their 20 overs. Ragumuran Ravichandran took 3 wickets, with skipper Vishal Menon taking 2/6 off his solitary over. Arun Kuriakose was our most economical taking 1/27 off his 4, showing the benefit of a consistent line and length outside off.
Falling to 4/54 after 7 overs, our chase didn't start as we would have hoped. Andrew Irving (52 off 47) and Vishal (30* off 40) combined for a 63 run 5th wickets stand, but we could never get near the required rate and fell 44 runs short. Scorecard
Saturday
Division 2 vs East Coast CC - Sent in to bat for our final match of the season, a number of our top order made starts but nobody kicked on for a big score. Saravana Kumar Chandran (22 off 26) held the innings together through the middle. Jarnail Singh (28 off 23) played his best knock of the season, while Harish Chandra (14* off 13) added some vital runs at the end. 9/135 off 20 gave us something to defend.
And we started off in good shape with Jarnail striking twice in his 2nd over. His new ball partner Sheunopa Nelson rewarded the captains call to give him a 3rd over with a wicket of his own. And when Nihar Shah struck twice in his 2nd over, East Coast were 5/43 and the game was ours for the taking. A chance to claim their captain early went begging, and unfortunately there would be no further success as they passed us with 5 balls to spare. Scorecard
Division 4 vs Scotia Strikers CC - Up against a 1st placed Strikers team that we had not beaten yet this season, our innings started poorly dropping to 3/19 inside the first 4 overs. Ashwin Srinivasan continued his fine recent form adding 54 with Jayachandran Perumalsamy (17) and 50 with Germanjeet Gill (26) to guide us to 7/135 off our 20. Ashwin finished unbeaten on 57 from 46 balls.
What looked like an under par score proved to be more than enough, as our entire bowling unit brought their A game. Anbarasu Vijayan (2/11 off 3) and Mohammed Junaid Hussain (1/18 off 4) did the early damage, before Jay (3/11 off 4) and German (2/23 off 4) took out their middle order. Ashwin (2/6 off 1.2) capped off a great all round effort taking 2 wickets at the end, wrapping up a 65 run win that puts us a step closer to a maiden Div 4 playoff berth. Scorecard
Monday
Division 1 vs NS Avengers CC - Batting first at Don Bayers, we lost regular wickets preventing us from building a big score. Antony Roche top scored with 30 off 35, with skipper Zeeshan Ansari contributing 27 off 25 in the back end. After 20 overs, we finished at 9/125.
Avengers came out swinging but our bowlers kept their nerve, not allowing them to score too quickly. Wickets were slow to come by though, Ajay Kumar (2/25 off 4) our only multiple wicket-taker, as we took 5 in total. Crucially, we kept at it right to the end, delaying Avengers passing our score until 19.1 overs, protecting our Net Run Rate to almost guarantee a semi final place irrespective of our result next weekend. Scorecard
Top Performers
- Ashwin Srinivasan 57* off 46 (Div 4)
- Andrew Irving 52 off 47 (Div 3)
- Vishal Menon 30* off 40 (Div 3)
- Antony Roche 30 off 35 (Div 1)
- Jayachandran Perumalsamy 3/11 off 4 (Div 4)
- Ragumuran Ravichandran 3/42 off 4 (Div 3)
Milestones Reached
- Andrew Irving & Vishal Menon - Highest Div 3 5th wicket partnership (63)