League Match 9: Aliens vs Marienslyst Cricket Club
Game no. 9 and both teams couldn’t have asked for a better day for cricket with a slight breeze across the ground at Rommen and 25 degrees in the air. A confident team (Aliens) with a comfortable second place on the table. Alan debuting in Alien CC colours for the second time (version 2.0, just grayer and slower)
The skipper won the toss and chose to chase. The bowlers stepped up and came in strong reducing Marienlyst CC to 13 for the loss of 3 wickets. With their middle order at the crease in the fourth over the pair batted sensibly to put up a 78 runs. Falling to the pressure built up by Dave giving away just 16 runs of his 6 overs. A wicket well deserved. By this time Aliens had a strong grip on the proceeding at this point and it seemed they will be chasing a small (150-ish) score.
But their no. 7 TM Mehmood had other plans. To make things interesting, he scored a 23 ball 50, but eventually fell in the last over. By then Marienlyst had scored just over 200 runs, denying Aliens an opportunity to obtain a bonus point. Eventually the target was 206. Some said it was a slightly below par score for this ground and given the batting conditions.
There were no big surprises in the second innings where the in-form batsmens Marcus and Damon made scoring look easy despite losing two early wickets. Marcus scored a 70 and Damon an unbeaten 91. Winning the game by six wickets and almost three overs to spare. The team stuck to the basics and didn’t lose its mind under pressure both when their lower middle order was firing and a loss of two early wickets while chasing. Four valuable points added to the tally in the end.