OD CUACO – 3rd XI vs Bickley Park CC – 3rd XI

Report

Difficult Day at the Office for Sunny’s Sunrisers

Disappointed to report on another poor result for the 3s in their away match with OD CUACO.

Regrettably we rocked up one short – not for the first time this season – but the skipper did us all a mighty favour by winning the toss and elected to bat in a match reduced to 35 overs a side to accommodate a certain football match!

After the early loss of novice opener Matty Ajmaya (yes we know you prefer the 5-6 slot!) Zaheer and Marcus put together an impressive stand of 50-odd to calm the nerves. While Zaheer showed his class with a very swashbuckling innings to reach 55 in what seemed a blink of an eye, young Marcus showed excellent technique and great patience to support him and occupy the crease for quite a while. Zaheer unfortunately played one shot too many and got out when he looked odds-on to reach three figures, replaced by Coach Hainsworth who also went on to make a solid contribution featuring a slog sweep or two which only he could play!

The middle order all performed well and sustained our good momentum with Sunny’s fine knock of 28 catching the eye, aided and abetted by stalwart Jeremy (17) and then young Mihan (who showed the old man how it’s done by outscoring him handsomely with a classy looking 17)

A score of 196-8 at the end of our allocation of overs was pretty acceptable and we stopped for a long tea break in great heart to take stock and watch the rest of the match.

I’m afraid that when we returned to the field all the positive vibes pretty soon evaporated as we served up too many short or wide balls which their senior batsman in particular feasted on all too often. We were soon staring down the barrel of a heavy defeat and an unseemly mid-innings altercation between the sides didn’t do anything to help lift our spirits.

With the skipper’s hands slightly tied by the lack of credible bowling options, the oppo eventually ran out easy winners without losing a wicket.

That said, we can take encouragement from some moments of good cricket, particularly from a couple of the young ‘uns, and look forward to another day in the sun next week.

Thanks as always to McQ for his “behind-the-scenes” efforts to ensure we took the field with as many numbers as possible.