A much better week for the Cannons with 4 wins out of 5 games. Wins in 40 overs, Div 1, Div 2 and Div 3 were offset only by a narrow 1 wicket loss for our valiant Div 4 team.
Our 40 over team kicked off our week with a dominant display over Titans, the game lasting barely longer than a T20. Shadab Ahmed was brilliant with the new ball taking 4/27 off 6 overs, ripping out their top order. Daksh Talwar took 2 in the middle, while Jaideep Singh mopped up the tail with 3/8 from 4.1 overs. Titans all out 101 in 24.1 overs. Priyank Shah returned to form at the top of our order with his 37 from 32 balls leading our chase. We lost a few more wickets than we should have, but Sagar Mandhan and Daksh got us over the line with 4 wickets and 134 balls to spare to take us to a 2-0 record in the league. Scorecard
Our Div 4 team compiled their highest score of the season against Titans on Saturday morning, hitting 114 all out on the tricky Don Bayers pitch. A 48 run partnership between captain Steve Smith (25*) and VC Raj Suhagiya (16) formed the backbone of the innings. Our inability to bat the full 20 would come back to haunt us, as Titans passed us with their last pair at the crease. That we made it this close was down to superb spells from Kevin Tuvar (4/19 off 4) and Raj 3/13 off 4). Scorecard.
Div 2 put together a great team batting effort against NS Avengers, compiling 8/165 off 20. Shivam Verma on debut showed his class with 45 from 38 balls, and received great support from Grant Whitcombe (36 off 31) and Nisarg Patel (26 off 17). Later on, it would be skipper Tushar Sehgal (21* off 12) and VC Revant Sharan (16 off 10) adding the final blows. After Avengers hit 24 from the first over in reply, Revant responded with 2 wickets in the second over. Avengers kept swinging, but were no match for our spinners, with Arshpreet Singh again showing his potential with 4/18 off 4, and Nihar Shah back to his best with 3/13 off 4. Parmveer Aujla should also be commended for conceding only 8 runs from his 3 overs and applying the brakes to their rampaging opener. Despite a late blitz from their tail, we were never really threatened as we finished on top by 15 runs. Scorecard
Div 1 followed up our 40 over game with another great bowling performance keeping Scotia Strikers to only 9/121 off 20. Shadab was again at his best with 3/21 off 4, with Jaideep picking up another couple of wickets. The chase had multiple contributors, Daksh hitting 25 from the top, Rudesh Audikesavalu with 25 of his own, and Priyank Trivedi with an unbeaten 20. Losing our 5th wicket with 26 still needed, there was still a little bit of work to do, but Satnam Singh closed it out by hitting his first 5 balls for 4, 6, 6, 6, 6 to end on 28 off only 5 balls and secure the win with 5 wickets and 24 balls to spare. Scorecard
Div 3 would cap the weekend off with a Tuesday night clash against a Strikers team who beat us by one run last outing. As with much of the weekend, our slow bowlers would dominate, our 4 prong spin attack of Kevin (3/20), Harish Chandra (2/24 off 4), Maryo John (2/26 off 3) and Saurabh Shreekumar (0/14 off 4) making scoring very difficult. Ragu Ravichandran took on the responsibility of being our sole pacer and claimed 2 wickets of his own. Strikers all out 121 with a ball to spare. In reply, we lost 2 wickets in 2 balls with the score at 5, but Shivam and Saruabh joined forces and took back control of the game. Shivam was a class above, scoring all around the wicket for an unbeaten 82 from 50 balls, while Saurabh played the perfect supporting role with 33* from 26. The two combined for our highest ever Div 3 partnership of 124, beating a record only set last week, and is a good sign that our Div 3 lineup has more batting strength than ever before. A win with 8 wickets and 41 balls to spare would is a huge boost to spot in the standings after some narrow losses. Scorecard
