A chilly night at the home of television. Richard Higginbottom had gathered twelve players so kept his suit on and picked up the scorer’s pencil, handing over the captaincy reins to Stuart Bruce – who called correctly and inserted our hosts.
Opening bowlers Shubham Kasar and Alfie Arrand were fast and accurate; Khan tried to get the scoreboard moving but only succeeded in giving a return catch to Shubham. Vinura Perera kept up the hostility whilst Graham Bruce took the pace off – which result in Bailey locating Alfie’s hands off Graham’s bowling in the ninth over. The runs have been held fairly well in check but there were plenty of batsmen left until Tim Richards took two wickets with unerring accuracy and application. Saurabh took one over to find his range but the batsmen could scarcely lay a bat on him after that – his sole wicket being scant reward for another brilliant display. Watermeyer and Pidgen managed to get the scoreboard into motion at last until the returning Shubham poured water on this attempted recovery. 121 target for the Gardeners.
Any nerves? The skipper certainly didn’t show any, smashing his way to retiring on 27 off only 13 balls. The home side were clearly shaken. Sajewan Anban and David Hollingsworth perished quickly giving CIPA hope, and the unfortunate Steve Wood got a good ball early on. But Alfie Arrand scored two magnificent sixes to get us back ahead before he left for 24 whilst Arvind Parmar played an intelligent innings of 25 to be our second retiree. Graham and Vinura Perera saw the Gardeners home with almost 5 overs left with some muscular strokeplay.
SGCC won by 6 wickets.
Salmagundi Gardeners Cricket Club 