Kowloon Cricket Club - Match Reports

With a batting line up stretching till number 8 and a potentially devastating bowling attack, the outcome of the toss would not have too much of a bearing on the outcome, but, nonetheless, my vice captain’s heartfelt advice (in absentia) was: “make sure you bl**dy bat if you win the toss!!” (hmm, I think most of us know why he was so inclined to say that!)

So, after winning the toss, I was pretty confident in electing to bat first and we got off to yet another flyer. With the bowling being pretty ordinary initially, Rahul and yours truly, played even more ordinary shots to be dismissed. Action replay was re-defined here as we both pulled it straight down deep mid-wicket’s throat. In came our extremely talented middle-order…

We all know that Naeem Ashraf has this tendency of making the bowling look not very different from a schoolboy attack. Playing on an astro wicket, you can imagine what happened. His 76 was filled with displays of power and some impeccable cricket shots which resulted in quite a few cricket balls being lost. Luckily, the Centaurs came with quite a few to spare (do you reckon they knew it was coming?) Having said this, I do not want to discount Nigel (24) and Ravi’s (32) innings as they both proved that they indeed are very capable of not only preventing a stereotypical Saracens collapse, but can capitalize on crucial situations, when the team needs them most.

Oh, and let’s not forget Amjad, he didn’t bat for too long - just came in and felt like stretching his arms and ended up playing an absolute gem of an innings… 55* off 20ish balls with some delightful thwacks! His contribution to the Saracens has been simply incredible – in all facets of the game (literally!) – as the wicket keeper, he took a catch, which resembled a circus trick (the left hand was poised like that of a waiter carrying a plate above his left shoulder!)

Rohan surprised us all by being available and entertained us with his swashbuckling innings [1 off 2 balls – was that another Rahul Dravid-esque cover drive for 1, Pugs? With the amount of running you did, I’m surprised you’re not a long distance runner – sure have the PL’s of one! – you can explain it to the guys (with examples)!]

Chasing 247, the Centaurs had their work cut out for them. Crossy (1-44) and Naeem (2-19) bowled an extremely tight line and length, which, along with some staid batting, resulted in the required run rate perpetually on the rise. However, it was Ravi who starred with the ball, taking 4 wickets in his 7 overs.

We took 5 catches (Burji’s diving effort to his left didn’t count as Naeem over stepped for the nth time – this seems to be recurring one two many times between these two players!) and the ground fielding was superb with one run-out. There were no genuine scares whilst they were batting but their number 5 (Iftikhar) did hit some MONSTROUS 6’s in his quick-fire 34, but the outcome of that was more entertainment than effect – even the victim (Rahul) saw the lighter side. Shiroy ‘Bollywood dives’ decided to finish things off and took the last over (4 runs). Has anybody seen a ‘medium/SLOW’ bowler? To be fair, he did bowl pretty straight and proved to everyone that he is the best ‘non-bowler’ in the HK Saturday league!

Winning by 55 runs, I can say that this was one of the best displays of team effort so far this season. Let’s keep this standard up guys and we can expect good things.

- Dyutish.

At MR: Saracens 247-5 (Naeem Ashraf 76, Ravi Sujanani 32, Mehmood 55*) beat Centaurs 192-8 (Shane Sibraa 46, Keith Hemshall 34, Imran Idrees 40, Iftikhar Ahmed 34; Ravi Sujanani 7-0-40-4) by 55 runs