A soggy Canada Day which saw our Div 2, 3 and 4 teams all washed out couldn't fully dampen our week, with our Div 1 and Div 3 teams both securing great wins over Halifax Titans earlier.
Div 1 got another crack against defending champions Titans last Tuesday, their first exposure to the new field at Don Bayers. With the start delayed by rain, we batted first in a reduced 17 overs game and accumulated 7/122. Arslan Khan top scored with 29 off 32, supported by Daksh Talwar with 25 off 20, and Antony Roche continuing his fine form with an unbeaten 27 from 22 at the end. Spin would dominate our defense of the target, with Daksh (3/22 off 4) and Zeeshan Ansari (3/13 off 4 in his 100th match) destroying their middle and lower orders to restrict them to 8/97 off 17, a 25 run win taking our record to 3-0 in the league. Scorecard
Saturday would see our Div 3 team in action, also against last years champs. Titans opted to bat first and started strongly reaching 70 after 10 for the loss of only one wicket. Again it would be spin that slowed it down, Harish Chandra (2/16 off 4) and Saurabh Shreekumar (2/24 off 4) leading the way as we kept Titans to 7/136 off 20. Sreekumar Balakrishnan (22 off 23) and Ravi Kiran Revu put on 43 to get the chase started on the right foot, minimizing the dot balls and punishing anything loose. Stand-in skipper Ahsan Hafeez hit 24 off 16 to get the required rate down well below a run a ball, while Ravi continued an intelligent innings bringing up his maiden HCL 50 before falling next ball. We had a little wobble, but the result was never in doubt as we got our 2nd successive win with 3 wickets and 8 balls to spare. Scorecard
After Sunday and Monday were complete write-offs due to rain and ground closures, our Div 1 team saw sunny skies for their 4th Tuesday evening game in the space of 5 weeks last night. Avengers batted first and started steadily, but we managed to pick up regular wickets to not let them get away from us until the very end, 7/144 being the final score. Daksh was again the pick of our bowlers with 3/20 off 4, while pacers Satnam Singh and Jaideep Singh picked up 2 each. In response, Rudesh Audikesavalu led the way with 42 from 37 balls, but was unable to find much support from the rest of the top order as our scoring rate dropped below the required rate. We had some brief lower order cameos, but hust couldn't quite get it done falling 10 short for our first league loss of the season. Scorecard
