Chiba Sharks 2nd XI vs. Alpha Quashers 2nd XI
Sano 1
April 18 2021
By Koji Watanabe
The match was held on a very windy day at Sano 1 with 12 brave Sharks: Ajeet (skipper), Asanka, Chathuka, Santosh, Ash, Hammy, Arthur, Adit, Anil, KB, Afroz (12th man) and Koji. The squad was also joined by Chooty who was pumped to play cricket with us this season!
Despite a heavy rain during the night, the pitch looked fairly dry. But we were all worried about the state of it.
Sharks set up the ground and stood in a circle for a few words from Ajeet. We welcomed two new players – Asanka and Chathuka. Ajeet gave Sharks blue caps to the debutants!
Sharks lost the toss and Alpha Quashers elected to field. (We wanted to bat anyway!)
Batting
Ajeet and Anil were the openers to get our innings off to a good start. Ajeet was solid and fending while biding his time in expectation of scoring boundaries. Anil punished the shrewd pace bowler with a big hit to score a six, and Ajeet, in response to Anil, started milking singles and he became comfortable to score 4s. After Anil was caught out, Ajeet was joined by Ashley. Ajeet was caught out by the lefty’s swinging ball.
Alpha Q bowlers were having difficulty attacking Ash who was calmly identifying opportunities. His focus continued even after Santosh was caught out, but he unfortunately nicked a ball and caught behind.
Asanka waltzed off to the ground. The bowlers never knew how to get him out and all they could do was see the ball flying over their heads. Arthur confronted fierce bowling attack although he received a fast ball on his right hand. Hammy went out of his way and scraped his left arm when he dove back to his ground, but he brought 18 runs to the team before he was out run out.
Chathuka sought runs and played dynamically, but he got run out. Before Adit could bat, we reached the 40th over. Asanka, the hero of the day, survived and scored whopping 79 out of 56 balls, and this is his first day playing for Sharks! We put up the total score of 204.
Bowling
Sharks bowling began with Adit and Arthur. Adit from the river end was accurate and pounding down Alpha Q batsmen. They were driven to defense mode. Arthur’s covering fire also intimidated the batsmen. We never slackened on the barrage with Asanka and Ash joining the attack. However, Alpha Q managed to find a toehold and started sending the ball to the boundary.
Arthur injured his leg and Afroz came in to field. Although Ajeet brought in Chathuka and Kris to give variation to our bolwing, we could not stop the opponent from smashing the ball.
The match was often interrupted when we had to find the ball in tall grass as Alpha Q started scoring many boundary shots. Chathuka earnt a wicket but we could not shut down their batting.
We lost by 9 wickets but it was a good sign that the 2nd XI put 200+ in a match! Thanks Alpha Quashers for a good match, and to the umpires for their work as well. We will be stronger and gain revenge next time!
