By El Presidente
I think we lost the toss and were sent into the field, which lines up with our usual plan. Really good bowling all-round, the fielding was excellent as well, especially from the young guys (who have clearly been trained well). Unfortunately, the catching wasn’t great – the skyball our nemesis once again.
Gazi (3 overs 1/13) claimed the first wicket with an LBW leaving the Gypsies 1/1. Lewis Beard claimed the next wicket with a lethal throw, moving to his right with one stump to aim at, leaving the batter well short of the crease, and wondering where that thunderbolt had come from given the bright blue sky overhead. It was a run out worthy of appearing in cricket.com.au highlights packages. Abhijeet Balaji rattled the stumps with his third ball, and bowled full and in the channel consistently, ending the day with 4 overs 1/6. Bryan and Will both bowled out their six overs in miserly spells going for 0/11 and 1/11 respectively.
The bowling honours clearly went to Chinmaya Madan who tore through the Gypsies with precision – hitting the top of off stump, then the top of leg stump, then an LBW that was taking the top of middle, and ended with a startling 5/12 from five and a half overs. Stiff resistance from opposition number six “Fifty” with 29 helped the Gypsies to 94 all out.
With a small target often being hard to chase down, we opted to open with the steady and guiding hand of John Wright (27), paired with the dashing flair of Lewis (3), who was given out caught behind in the second over 🙁
Gazi (10) made his presence felt (in more ways than one) with a couple of nice shots but was also caught behind, leaving us 2/18 after 8 overs. Enter Arjun (28), watched on by very proud dad, Govind, who put on a 20-over 50-run partnership with John, before both were run out in consecutive overs. Ajeet (14*) opened his scoring with a glorious slog sweep for 6 followed by a boundary, this 12 run over breaking open the game, leaving 6 overs to get the remaining 11 runs for the win. Boundaries from Will (4) and Bryan (4*) saw us home with three overs and wickets to spare. Well done everyone, especially to debutants Arjun with a patient and controlled innings of 28, and the star of the day Chinmaya with the first five wicket haul of the season.