JCL1 Sharks vs Max at SICG
11 May 2019 by Asala Wickramachige
It was not too hot, not too cold, but warm weather at SICG welcomed us, teh Sharks, and the last year’s JCL division 1 champions, Max CC. Our players (in batting order) were Neel, skipper Dhugal, Deba, Rui, Arata, Takady, Asala, Marcus, Yugi, Leon, and Mahesh. Doogs won the toss, and as usual elected to bat first.
Batting
Dhugal and Neel opened the batting. Dhugal is a great captain to follow. And also, I might add at this time, that he might be a psychic because before the game kicked off Doogs gave us two batting orders. One as usual and other was one for in case our first wicket went down before the 5th over. Max CC’s veteran bowlers Takuro started off the game, and the first over was a maiden. During the fourth over Neel played a cover drive and it didn’t work the way he wanted. The ball went up and was nicely caught by Kobayashi. There went Sharks first wicket down before the fifth over.
That changed our batting order and brought Deba up resulting in everyone else stepping one order down. Deba joined Doogs and soon after, during the sixth and seventh over, we lost another two wickets. Takuro Hagihara cleaned up Doogs, and MAX knew they were well in the game. 10 overs gone for 28 runs and 3 wickets. Rui held the Sharks aloft for a bit longer with his bat showing some real staying power as he top scored with 21. The middle order couldn’t show the same resolve and the Sharks and nine of the ten wickets to fall went to catches and Sharks were all out for 82 runs in 29 overs.
Bowling/Fielding
Sharks would not go down without a fight. With that in mind we went onto the ground to defend 82 runs. Rui and young player Yugi opened the bowling. Sharks were no second to Max cc as Yugi took the first Max cc wicket and Leon collected the catch from point, which was one of the big wickets, Hanif.
Later, here came the bamboozling bowler, Mystery (Mahesh). He doesn’t know what he is bowling until the ball hits the ground. Max cc’s Supun aggressively tried to finish the game. But he was tricked by Mahesh, and Supun tried to find the gap and played a straight drive that went up in the air. Asala saw the opportunity and ran from extra cover and grabbed that catch. Mahesh took another wicket caught by our 12th man Ashley from midwicket. Sharks were battling hard to defend our score. At this point Max cc were 10 overs and 3 wickets and 55 runs. Next, young player Leon was introduced with the ball. He picked up another wicket caught by Rui. Shortly Max cc claimed the victory in 15th over for a bonus point.
Although we lost, the positive side of this game is that we showed that Sharks are capable of fighting back whether the score is big or small by taking Max cc 5 wickets in 15 overs. Thank you to Max cc who played in the right spirit throughout the match and the umpires from Wyverns cc. Special thanks to Ashley for helping us as a 12th man.
