Saracens v.
Nomads

Saturday Plate 
- Quarter Finals

Tartars v. HKU

Saturday Cup/Plate 
- First Round

Tartars v. 
Merchants

Saracens v.
Gap Ramblers

Crusaders v.
Lamma

Saturday Cup  - Quarter Finals

Saracens v. Nomads at KCC (24.4.99)
Result: Saracens won by 23 runs

At KCC (24.4.99): Saracens 170-9 (R Sujanani 62; A Ashman 3-54, Tuckwell 4-41) beat Nomads 147 (R Sujanani 5-47) by 23 runs.

Saturday Plate  - Quarter Finals

Tartars v. HKU at HKU (24.4.99)
Result: Tartars lost by 27 runs

At HKU (24.4.99): HKU 178-9 (M Sabine 72, A Shukla 39; B Gohel 4-24) beat Tartars 151 (B Gohel 58; S Metha 3-16, B Jones 3-18) by 27 runs.

Saturday Cup/Plate  - First Round

Tartars v. Merchants at Mission Road (10.4.99)
Result: Tartars lost by six wickets

At MR: Merchants 169-4 (Hussain 57, I Gul 45, T R Kalyanraman 42) beat Tartars 167-7 (K Lowcock 41, I Mir 41) by six wickets.

Saracens v. Gap Ramblers  at mission Road (17.4.99)
Result: saracens won by one wicket

At MR: Saracens 119-9 (Kidal 4-22) beat Gap Ramblers 118-9 (J Khan 5-20) by one wicket.

Crusaders v. Lamma at KCC (17.4.99)
Result: Crusaders lost by one run.

Crusaders went into their first round cup match against Lamma without a couple of trusty campaigners - Brewster, still nursing his broken arm and Steward, still nursing his broken promise. Still, with the likes of Eames and Green to open the batting, the team was confident of a victory against a team that they had dispatched with consummate ease in the league.

Lamma batted first on a green top in very humid conditions. To say the wicket was doing a bit early would be an understatement. But it was through the choice of poor shot selection that saw the top half of the batting line up back in the pavilion for only 60-odd runs after fifteen overs. Mark Burns seemed on a mission to give his wicket away, managing to give the Crusaders fielders plenty of reason to shy at the stumps. But he eventually fell to rank shot, trying to pull Middlestump from a good length ball on, well, middle stump. Middlestump was the benefactor of the lemming-esque display by the village batsmen, claiming 4-21, including the dangerous Malik, in a spell of ten solid overs in sticky conditions.

It was at the completion of his spell that saw fortunes change dramatically. Hutchinson joined Tarr and together the two started punishing the toothless bowling attack.  Together the pair put on a 100 run partnership in pretty quick time. None of the bowlers were spared any mercy, with Hyphen, Nissim, Lethbridge and Jardine coming in for a bit of stick. Hutchinson was eventually dismissed for 48, whilst Tarr went on to make 99 not out, failing to score off the last ball despite nearly every Crusader on the fence. 160 runs off the last fifteen overs and Lamma had posted 206-5.

Batting with a left hand/right hand partnership policy, Green and Jardine set about the chase, though the latter was soon back in the pavilion having been adjudged not to have played a shot despite lunging forward to the seaming ball. Eames joined Green and the rest of the Crusaders team settled down to a session of sun bathing. Green went on to score another half century, falling for 83 to a blinder of a catch at an unorthodox fielding position that could only be described as deep third slip.

With still 50 runs required at about 8 an over, Trayford joined Eames. Not taking too many chances, the two set about their task by trying to rotate the strike as often possible. The target was gradually reduced until Trayford was run out, after a scampered single came up inches short, with Hutchinson kicking the ball on to the stumps - his first straight strike of the season. Pittman struck a four from his first ball but was run out with out adding to his score. When Eames patient innings came to an end in the next over (bowled off his legs from a ball that would probably have been called wide had it missed him), Crusaders still needed 12 runs from 15 balls. Lethers and Nissim eked out a few singles and the last over started with only six runs required. Four singles came easily off the first two balls but with two runs still required, Lethbridge was unable to score, hitting the fifth ball straight back to the bowler and missing the last. The Lamma players hugged themselves with joy as they had undoubtedly snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat.

What had appeared to be a controlled chase had fallen tantalisingly short. In a match that Crusaders had controlled for all but 16 overs, Lamma walked away with the spoils. Crusaders misery was compounded with the news that HKU had also been relegated to the Plate - the prospect of a return visit to Sandy Bay did not fill anybody's hearts with glee.

At KCC (17.4.99): Lamma 207-5 (B Tarr 99*, P Hutchinson 48; J Middleton 4-21) beat Crusaders 206-6 (D Green 83, M Eames 43) by 1 run.

Barbarians v.
Wasps

Sunday Cup/Plate
- First Round

Hornets v. 
Wasps

Barabarians v.
Scorpions

Sunday League
- Round 24

Dragons v.
Infidels

Sunday Plate - Semi-Finals

Barbarians v. Wasps at KCC (24.4.99)
Result: Wasps won by seven wickets

At KCC (24.4.99): KCC Wasps 118-3 beat KCC Barbarians 112 by seven wickets.

Sunday Cup/Plate - First Round

Hornets v. Wasps at KCC (17.4.99)
Result: Hornets won by 13 runs

Hornets Give Wasps Sting in the Tail

What might have turned into a farcical inter-club game, played between two nine-man teams, turned into a thrilling battle at a sun-drenched KCC. In the end Hornets owed their win as much to a collective never-say-die approach as to individual performances. Sad to say, but once Eames and particularly Sharma had been dismissed in the Wasps' reply, the other players appeared to have neither the belief nor the nous to win a match that was there for the taking at under five runs an over.

Hornets took first use of as close as KCC comes to a belter these days, Green's rapier providing a nice foil to skipper Scanlon's bludgeon. Scanlon's century proved to be a match-winning effort on a day when he knew that his bowling resources would be severely tested by Sharma and Eames. After wickets had tumbled rather alarmingly, the priority for last man Tyrwhitt-Drake as he strode to the wicket at the dizzy heights of Number 9 was as much to use up the overs as to build on a total of 225. Hyphen was to treat the large crowd on the balcony and at the swimming pool to a collector's item (a shot on the leg side) before getting down to serious business with the slice over cover.

But it was man of the moment Ben Butt who took the leading role in what turned out to be his second match-winning last-wicket partnership of this Cup weekend. When Butt was out trying to hit over the top once too often in the 48th, and what would have been the last, over of Hornets' innings (the cut-off time having been reached), few people in the ground would have thought the two extra overs would be significant. Few that is, apart from club sage and chairman of the Hong Kong Umpires' Association James Middleton, whose Delphic mutterings were to prove all too prophetic.

For Wasps the unlikely bowling star was Ijaz Mir, whose lack of movement in the air or off the pitch (making him a kind of straight-armed Hyphen) proved too much for five Hornets. Star batsmen Sharma and Eames looked in complete control against an adequate but scarcely penetrative  Hornets' attack, but both were guilty of losing their concentration on what was admittedly an energy sapping day (with temperatures around the 30 degree mark and 90 per cent humidity). The persevering Cannell took the key wickets with the assistance of good catches from Jardine (sensibly taking the ball in his belly) and that man Butt. At this stage Hornets' trump card Jiggy Tailor was bowling more like a joker than an ace, but after he had the dangerous Mir caught for 19 by Graham Evans (another excellent return of 48 runs from his 10 overs), Jiggy began to look like the "colony" bowler he is. As his confidence returned so did his line and length, which was enough to account for Wasps' brittle tail.

Final mentions on a day of high drama and some good cricket must go first to Hornets' excellent and unfussy keeper Robin Gill (enjoying a rare day off from his arduous duties as a Government servant). Then to Mike Trayford, who tore himself away from his parental duties long enough to provide Hornets' with a tenth man in the field and several extra drinkers in the bar, even if his "registration" had arrived a little too late to stand up to the ultimate test: an audit by Wasps' captain and pillar of Price Waterhouse, Tony Correa. And finally to Ah Kwong, whose 30 years man and boy at KCC have taught him one thing if nothing else - when two KCC sides play a Cup match, it's a dead cert that each captain will leave it to the other to sort out lunch and dinner. Thanks, Ah Kwong from us all, but especially from Graeme Jardine, who might not have made it back to Discovery Bay without his daily carbo-loading!

So Hornets march on to the semi-finals triumphant but aware that they will need to draw on more than team spirit alone if they wish to go all the way against the likes of Optimists and the Pakistan Association. Eleven men, for starters ...

At KCC (18.4.99): KCC Hornets 262-8 (S Scanlon 106, D Green 48, B Butt 21; Mir 5-36) beat KCC Wasps 249-8 (R Sharma 103, M Eames 69, Bhatnagar 28; J Cannell 3-40, J Tailor 3-51) by 13 runs.

Barbarians v. Scorpions at DBS (17.4.99)
Result: Barbarians were unable to raise a side and conceded a walk-over to Scorpions.

Sunday League - 11th April 1999 (Round 24)

Dragons v. Infidels at KCC
Result: Dragons won by seven wickets

At KCC: Dragons 221-3 (C Manoj 68, R Sujanani 52, B Gohel 44*, J Tailor 35*) beat Infidels 217 (D Green 112, M Eames 35; J Tailor 5-71, S Lama 3-36) by seven wickets.