Div 2 Round 1: Søndre Nordstrand C.K. Vs Aliens C.C.
When: 05 May
Where: Rommen
195/7 – 136 all out
Søndre won by 59 runs
The first game of the season was played in near perfect conditions, 23 degrees and sunny, in what was probably the nicest weather that will be had all year. The Søndre captain won the toss and probably fancied to get some sunbathing in, so sent out his openers to bat. Damon Crawford bowled Aliens’ first over of the season and got us off to a perfect start with a wicket in the first over from a catch by Sudesh Adhan (though the worst possible start for the poor batsman starting the season off with a golden duck).
The following wickets proved more elusive as Søndre put on 30+ runs for each of their next 4 wickets. The lack of quick wickets allowed batsman to get settled with the opener Abbas hitting 50 before being run out by some poor running. At the drinks break however, Søndre were at around 5 an over, with Aliens being confident that if they could keep the run rate down for the second half of the innings they would have a chaseable score.
In the 17th over, Søndre’s number 6, Mazhar Hussain, came in and put in scintillating batting display which would turn out to be a match winning performace. 67 off 38 balls, with 3 fours and 7 sixes. This really accelerated the score, leaving Aliens with 198 to chase. Aliens left the field knowing the score was chaseable, and were content with their fielding performance, especially for the first match of the year.
Aliens began their reply fairly poorly, being 27-2 in the 7th over. Dennis Peter and Damon Crawford put together a solid partnership which seemed to provide a base off which Aliens would have a chance of chasing the total down. However, both Dennis and Damon fell either side of the drinks break, leaving Aliens 71-4 by over 16. Number 7 Assad Ullah provided some good resistance on his debut, hitting 26 (the CricHQ scorecard is wrong here), but his wicket and the final 2 wickets fell for just 10 runs leaving Aliens to lose by 59 runs. The innings lacked a batsman really sticking around, as the highest score was 26 and the largest partnership was just 43.
Captain Dennis Peter however saw positives in the performance, and knowing Aliens are traditionally slow starters to the season, that we’ll improve rapidly, and we will surely beat Søndre in the return fixture later in the year.
