An up and down weekend with Div 2 getting a win and a loss from their double header, Div 3 losing and Div 4 falling a wicket short for the second successive game.
Saturday morning had Div 3 fielding first against Avengers, and again struggling to contain a batting lineup that has scored big against us this year. They compiled 5/196 off their 20, with spinners Ravi Kiran Revu (3/24 off 3) and Saurabh Shreekumar (2/25 off 4) taking all of our wickets. In reply, we never threatened, Shivam Verma (44 off 26) not able to find any support in the top order. A club record 38 run 10th wicket partnership the only bright spot as Ali Sher (29 off 28) showed glimpses of his talent at the end. Scorecard
Div 2 were up against Scotia Strikers in the afternoon, a team we had only played a few overs against in the washed out season opener. Our bowlers put in a great team effort to restrict them to only 92 off their 20 overs. Revant Sharan did the early damage. Parmbeer Aujla twice sent a stump cartwheeling in a spell of blistering speed, conceding only 8 runs from his 4 overs. Ajay Kumar took the last two in the death to stop them from accelerating at the death. Our keeper Saravana Kumar Chandran was at his absolute best, two superb catches up to the stumps to the medium pacer, a clever stumping, and expertly dealing with the pace and swing on display. Our openers Andrew Irving (57 off 34) and Priyank Shah (29* off 32) looked like they would earn the club our first ever 10 wicket win, but we would instead settle for the victory with 9 wickets and 53 balls to spare. Scorecard
Div 4 battled hard to put together 6/112 off their 20, thanks largely to the efforts of Shakti Badgujar (27 off 29) and Maryo John (20 off 11) in the closing stages. Left armer Tanmay Rajput had his radar perfectly finetuned as he started our defense with 3 early wickets, none requiring the use of a fielder. Maryo (4/31 off 4) took the next 4, followed by one to Gurdeep Singh Boparai. Tanmay was brought back on for his final over and took our 9th wicket, finishing with the amazing figures of 4/7 off 4 overs, and Strikers were down to their last pair with 19 still required. A couple of close lbw calls went against us, and they batted calmly under pressure to get to the target. Another very close loss for the boys, who would be left to rue gifting away 35 extras in a low scoring game. Scorecard
The weekend would be capped off with the second Div 2 game of the weekend. Batting first, Shivam played brilliantly again, hitting 74 off 50 balls with 5 fours and 5 sixes. Unfortunately he received no top order support, only Arshpreet Singh with 18 doing what was needed as he put on 50 with Shivam for the 6th wicket. Our lower order couldn't bail us out this time as they usually do, and we left some runs out there as we were dismissed for 146 with 5 balls left. Our first 3 wickets would all be catches to Dhruv Mohta, as the ball seemed to follow him. Once again Parmveer was a handful for the batters as he took 3/18 off 4. Arshpreet gave us late hope with a stunning one hander off his own bowling, followed up by catching a skier off the next over. We took it to the last over with 6 needed to win and 3 wickets in hand, but they only needed 2 balls. Scorecard