The match was played at Pattana Sports Resort on Sunday 20th Feb under increasingly dark and threatening clouds and a stiff southerly breeze. PCC continued their winning streak with their best performance to date by defeating a top 4 team and now lie 5th in the A Division, behind BCC. PCC’s fielding was excellent with plenty of hard running, only 1 dropped catch, accurate bowling (well most of the time) and forceful batting.
BCC won the toss and decided to bat. They opened with Semarjit Singh and Vishal Patkar whilst PCC opened with Ryan Driver and Wez Masterton, Ben Fogden being unavailable. The first 5 overs were an even contest between batsmen and bowlers with plenty of dot balls and the occasional boundary and wide. Vishal had some luck when on 10 as Jainish Parikh’s normally safe hands fumbled the ball at the deep midwicket boundary off Ryan’s bowling.
A solid start for BCC with 21 off the first 5 overs. Bernie Lamprecht and Jainish took up the bowling attack and had immediate success on the long on boundary when Ryan caught Vishal for 19, BCC’s top scorer for the day. Jainish made amends in the 10th over when Semarjit got an edge and was caught behind by Colin Clark. Captain Abhijit Kulkarni and Rahul Jangir made steady progress over the next 5 overs until Rhaul, on 17, played all round a ball from Bernie and lost his off stump. BCC went for drinks on 3 for 78 and quietly happy with their performance. After drinks, things went a little haywire.
Habby bowled an awful over with a No Ball and 7 wides but managed to fool Abhijit with a slower straight ball which he popped up to Capt Simon Philbrook at extra cover. This seemed to put BCC into panic-mode as a few runs later, Rony Moreshed went for a run that wasn’t there and Wez ran him out with a direct hit at the non-striker’s end. Pritish Kumar was doing his best to hold the fort for BCC but Andy Emery, the Man of the Match, decided to decimate his BCC team-mates with accurate medium pace bowling.
Pritish, 18, and Prem Subranisinair, 2, went to catches from Wez Masterton and Luke Stokes, whilst Parvez was plum LBW for 1. Ryan Driver returned for one over in which Wez took his third catch of the day on the boundary when he caught Prasad Newalkar for 8. Andy Emery closed out the BCC innings when he bowled Nivedan Kumar for 1 and BCC were all out for 126 and Andy had figures of 3.4 overs, 1 maiden and 4 for 15. A devastating effort to wrap up the tailenders.
BCC would have to dominate with the ball and field extremely well to restrict PCC to a mediocre score of 126 on a ground where 150 is par. The PCC batsmen were in no mood to comply. As usual Wez opened, but this time with Ryan Driver against BCC’s Rahul Jangir and Qamar Asdaque. Wex went into “normal mode” but he wasn’t allowed to have it all his own way as he was dropped and there were plenty of dot balls from the pace and accuracy of Rahul.
The third over brought success for Rahul as Ryan didn’t quite get hold of a ball and was caught on the long on boundary by Qamar for 8. 18 for 1 after 3 overs. Luke Stokes arrived at the crease with a plan. Support Wez whilst he blazed away and stay in for the longer term. It worked a treat. Wez raced along as usual, giving Nivedan and Rony some unfair abuse, but he finally holed out for 48 from 30 balls, bowled by Vishal Patkar, in the 8th over.
The scene had been set and BCC were about to be put to the sword. Vishal bowled really well with 2 maiden overs but everyone else, Semarjit, Qamar, Parvez and Rony were summarily dismissed to all parts of the ground by Luke. Luke did have some luck when he was dropped by the bowler having skied a ball, but he kept out the good balls and punished the rest. He was ably supported by Trevor Moolman who sprinted some quick singles and he took good runs from Prasad Newalkar and Parvez, but Parvez got his revenge when he bowled Trevor for 15 at drinks.
At this point PCC were 98 for 3 and aiming to twist the knife. Pete Reeh replaced Trevor and supported Luke who was on the rampage. The final over from Qamar saw him hit for 15 with a 6 and a 4 from Luke off the last 2 balls. Luke finished 48 not out and PCC won by 7 wickets with 6 overs to spare. A convincing win against a top 4 club.
With 4 matches remaining, one against the Division leaders, AIT, there is still a good chance that PCC can earn a top 4 place for the finals.
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