vs Minhaj A, T20 (Div 4) Match 3
By the skin of our teeth…
The scorebook said Aliens 122 for 2, Minhaj 121 all out. Which is a neat way of recording events, but not necessarily an accurate one. Cricket is rarely so simple.
Aliens began as though they had been handed the wrong script. Simon, playing his first match of a seasons, scratched his way to five from fourteen balls before Shinwari removed him with the score on 11. The required urgency was absent, perhaps misplaced in somebody's kit bag next to the bails! Avra and Pratik then settled into a partnership built on patience, caution, and the shared understanding that panic is often overrated.
Avra compiled 30 from 37 deliveries, a score with all the glamour of accountancy but considerable value. At the other end, Pratik slowly went through the gears. There were only six boundaries in his innings, five of them clearing the rope, but despite lacking his usually fluency he didn’t panic and throw it away. By the time Avra departed with the score on 88 in the sixteenth over, Pratik had established himself as the man the score was built around.
Dennis joined in the innings late on but talked bigger than he managed to hit after giving the spectators a chat about going from ball one, he finished unbeaten on 9 off 13.
In some ways that was a bit the story of the innings, solid, mostly untroubled but just lacking that little extra to take the score up to an above average one. The innings closed on a fractionally under par 122.
However, like many modest targets, it grew in stature the closer anybody got to it.
The chase began chaotically. Minhaj lost two wickets inside two overs and three within four, with Dennis getting two and Sudesh grabbing one in two overs that can only be described as action packed. 33-3 after 4. After this frantic start Minaj settled down a bit, with former Alien Tariq rebuilder in chief.
Benan, then the three-pronged off spin attach of David, Rahul and Lendle rattled through the next 9 overs for just 38 runs, a spell of cricket that resembled somebody quietly stealing bricks from a building while nobody was paying attention. Two more wickets fell in this spell, the first a sharp catch ground the corner form Lendle and the second a brilliant diving catch form Arva to snaffle the ball inches from the turf that probably deserves its own report.
At 71 for 6 after thirteen overs, the chase looked to be all but finished on paper. But anyone involved in aliens or Norwegian cricket knows that cricket here rarely works that way, there is nearly always a sting in the tail
In this case, His name was Abdul Baker.
Baker began cautiously enough. After five balls he had two runs. After ten balls he had nine. Then Matt's over arrived and briefly resembled a charitable donation.
A no-ball six. A four. Another four. Another no-ball. After the second no ball Matt was removed from the attack (he didn’t look too disappointed) and Sudesh was given the task of starting with a free hit and a batsman who’s suddenly found form.
Baker hit Sudesh’s first ball straight down Pratik’s throat at long on, and Sudesh’s celebration suggested he had forgotten it was a free hit, much giggling in the field ensured!
He got through the rest of the over unscathed, however 19 runs coming from the over was enough to swing the momentum in a low scoring match and the required rate had collapsed to 5.2.
By the end of the 17th over Minhaj were 107 for 6, needing only 16 from 18 deliveries and with Baker flying. It felt very much like a film we’d seen before.
The 18th over brought eight runs more. Baker slapped a short ball for 4 through square leg and then threaded lovely back cut behind square for a couple. The target shrank to eight from thirteen balls.
Then came the first twist.
On the final ball of Lendle’s over, Baker went hard again, trying to launch a length ball over midwicket, this time he didn’t quite get all of it and Rahul took an excellent catch on the rope to end his cameo. He walked off for 39 from 30 balls, having transformed the chase and then left it unfinished.
Minhaj were 115 for 7.
Still favourites.
Almost certainly favourites.
Dennis took the nineteenth over himself (captaining as Pratik was off the field)
Tariq on strike
Dot ball.
Two runs.
Dot.
Dot.
Dot.
A single pushed back past the bowler
Three runs from the over.
Five required from the final six deliveries.
Defeat still seemed likely, with just one swiped boundary probably all that was needed.
Benan was given responsibility, with his tail up after an excellent spell the week before.
First ball: Tariq drove the ball firmly to Dennis at mid off, who half stopped it, the batsman came through, and then Tariq, keen to get back on strike, called for a second that went against everything your taught as a kid about running on misfields, and Babar was run out by half a pitches length.
Second ball: dot.
The field crept closer. Conversations shortened. The noise around the ground changed.
Third ball: Tariq punched the ball over mid off, and it seemed it would run away for a boundary to tie up the scores. However this is Norway, a land where they rarely cut the outfield and when they do they leave the gangs set to 2cm! The ball stopped up a few meters short of the boundary, and the batsmen were only able to scamper two.
Two required from three deliveries.
One clean boundary would still end it.
Or, more likely one thick edge. Or misfield.
Instead came another dot ball.
Two needed from two.
Tariq had now spent 39 balls compiling 19 runs, an innings of endurance rather than adventure. The sort of knock that survives by avoiding mistakes. Unfortunately for him, one arrived at just the wrong time.
Fifth ball. Benan coming around the wicket, looking to cramp the batsmen for room. Tariq had given himself some room looking to poke a single on the offside, however the ball sneaked past his prod and rattled into off stump, ending his vigilant innings.
One run still required.
One ball remaining.
A new batter, Shinwari, walked in. There is no lonelier journey in cricket than the one from boundary rope to crease when a match depends on your first ball, was he imagining a match winning 6 or a despairing swipe and miss.
One run needed.
One ball left
Last man on strike
Chaos likely, fielders telling each other to stay calm in the least calm manner possible
Benan ran in. Cleaned bowled in a copy of the previous ball. Game over.
Minhaj all out for 121.
Aliens had defended 122 by a solitary run
The scoreboard records that Benan with figures of 3-0-12-2 and that the final over yielded only three runs while claiming three wickets, including a run-out. Those numbers are accurate, but incomplete. They don’t capture the sensation of watching hopes of victory fade, pause, reverse, and then reappear. Nor do they explain why we keep coming back.
Perhaps because every so often the game produces a finish like this, where 39.5 overs are merely a preamble to the last one.
And because somewhere, years from now, we’ll remember only two things: we won by one run, and the Manchester Super Elefants promo video!
vs Siddis, T20 (Div 4) Match 2
A thrilling summary of our latest exploits
When: 30th May 2026
Where: Lassa
Siddis 134/10 (19.1)
Aliens 102/9 (20)
Siddis won by 32 runs
To Stavanger then, for the Aliens’ annual jaunt westwards to play cricket in the rain. Following a tortuous process to identify 10 Aliens willing to travel, an auspicious start as we boarded the Norwegian flight LYON ready to try and tame a fearsome Siddis XI.
Sent out to bowl first on a sodden outfield and in overcast conditions, we made the perfect start. Benan intercepting a fierce drive to take a high catch in the second over. Aliens being Aliens, we then managed to shell four catches, of varying difficulty, in the next three overs as the Momand brothers put on a rapid partnership of 38 in the next 16 balls. Sudesh ended their fun with a sharp stump-botherer, 40/2 off 4 overs.
Benan and Marcus then calmed proceedings down with a nagging display of line and length, with just 9 runs coming off the next 4 overs and each of them bagging a wicket.
When Gareth and Jitendra then whistled through the next 4 overs for just 14 runs and also bagged a wicket each, things were looking good. 63/6 off of 12 overs. But we hadn’t reckoned on the mighty Aryan Khan (jaber). Boasting a top score in the league of 168 and hitting a six every eight balls, he came in and transformed the match with an innings of 37 off 19 balls. Gareth was dispatched onto the roof of the training nets and then, next ball, into the adjacent field.
We needed something to disrupt the might Aryan’s concentration and it came in the 16th over. With confusion over the start of the bowling powerplay and how many overs were remaining, the game stopped for 20 minutes while we tried to figure out the score. Upon closer inspection, the umpires discovered the scorer had inserted an entire extra over, bowled by “Unknown 2 Aliens Ck”. And what an over it was, conceding just the one run, a wide, from his 6 deliveries.
We were left to wonder – had the scorer hallucinated the entire over? Or perhaps we on the field had suffered a mass case of amnesia and in fact the masterful “Unknown 2 Aliens Ck” had reeled off an economical over so dull and easily forgettable that we had all forgotten it. Perhaps the aliens really were visited by Aliens and they had erased the entire episode from our minds?
It took a while to delete this hypothetical over from the app and from cricketing history. With so much to ponder, it was no wonder Aryan holed out soon after in the deep to give Sudesh his third victim. A couple of irritating cameos followed from Siddis’ number eight (16 off 17) and number 10 (13 off 7) to further take the game out of reach. But Benan closed out the other end masterfully to finish with figures of 4-1-7-3 and Damon took the final wicket in the 20th over to leave Siddis on 134 all out.
Aliens reply started steadily. Siddis, somewhat unfairly, utilised their advantage of being much younger and more agile than us by opening the bowling with a couple of young speedsters. Number 97 in particular hit some impressive speeds and run-scoring was difficult on a typically lush Norwegian outfield.
We finished the Powerplay on 25/0 and the required run rate steadily rising. With pace on the ball not working, Siddis’ then unleashed their secret weapon, Qamar Gk, a bowler with an enormous run-up culminating in slow, loopy, moon balls. How could we resist? Qamar soon had Marcus (11) caught at point and then Milton (9) trapped LBW.
Avra and Damon rebuilt the innings with a tenacious partnership, until Avra was dismissed by jaffa, gone for 30 off 34 balls.
Damon now had to contend with a rising run rate, a clatter of wickets at the other end and – an added dimension in a run chase – the impending threat of missing his flight home, as further scoring app issues meant the match dragged out deep into a fourth hour. The returning Number 97 (4-0-16-2) bowled both Gareth and Hinchy with some impressive pace bowling. Benan performed a trademark run out to depart for a duck, and eventually Damon holed out for 26. With him, departed Aliens last hopes, finishing on 102 for 9 off our 20 overs.
On reflection, the better team won. Siddis fielded better, bowled with good discipline and managed to find some pockets of good hitting at moments when Aliens were in the ascendency.
vs Grorud-Spektra
A thrilling summary of our latest exploits
When: 01 May, 2026
Where:
Oslo Aliens 160/3 (20)
Grorud 165/5 (20)
Grorud won by 5 wickets
Some new faces and a new captain set the stage for Aliens' first practise match of 2026 against Grorud-Spektra Cricket Club. Captain Pratik started his Aliens Captaincy solidly by winning the toss and electing to bat first.
Oslo Aliens posted a strong total of 160/3 from their 20 overs, built on two retired-not-out contributions at the top of the order. Pratik led the charge with an aggressive 55 off 35 balls, striking 5 fours and 3 sixes at a strike rate of 157.14. He later called it the worst 50 ever made in the world of fifties, on the background of him not hitting it well. The performance was well supported by David , who anchored the innings with a composed 50 off 53 deliveries, timing the ball quite well from ball 1. Matt added late momentum with a quickfire 24* from just 15 balls, ensuring the innings finished on a high note.
In response with the ball, Marcus Lyon was the standout performer, delivering a highly economical spell of 1/10 from his 3 overs, maintaining control throughout. Sudesh Adhana picked up 2 wickets and when the opposition needed 4 of the last over, Sudesh delivered a gem of a last over that saw Aliens losing on the last ball of the match. Sindre Ottesen and Nilojan Gnana chipped in with a wicket each.
Overall, the match was defined by controlled aggression and solid partnerships, while the bowling side found its rhythm after a while. A solid performance for the start of the season and a lot of positives to build a season upon!