As reported last week, the second half of the Pattaya-RST Indoor Cricket league offered opportunities to seek revenge and that is exactly what happened between PCC and Alibaba CC. PCC were missing Trevor Moolman and Jainish Parikh and so Wez Masterton and Andy Emery took their places along with Dave Samways, but it was Habby who was the star of the match with 3 overs 22 for 4.
PCC won the toss and decided to bowl first. Molin and Dan took the field against Andy who had Dan caught by Amit at cover on the 3rd ball of the match. Wez compounded Alibaba’s problems by bowling Dan (8) in the next over and running him out on the last ball due to sharp work between Wicket Keeper Luke and Wez. Habby, not wishing to be left out, or leave Molin (10) unscathed, clattered his stumps in the next over and Alibaba concluded their first 3 overs on a disastrous 8 for 4. Sagan (8) and Terry (12) batted for the next 3 overs and managed to stem the flow of lost wickets and add some runs, but PCC were unrelenting.
Habby bowled both batsmen in consecutive balls for 3 runs in the over and Alibaba continued to struggle at 22 for 6. Ricky (13) and Gary (18) who have been Alibaba’s most reliable batting pair, took the final 3 overs and restored a semblance of order in the scorebook by aggressive running and preservation of their wickets – well almost. Andy and Amit remained wicketless but reasonably tidy, only leaching 11 and 7 runs respectively, but Habby trapped Gary LBW on the penultimate ball for a 4-wicket haul. Alibaba concluded on 48 for 7 which would be very hard to defend.
PCC sent in Amit (15) and Dave (6) with the aim of protecting their wickets and getting what runs they could. It worked fairly well with Amit getting a cheeky reverse sweep for a boundary 3 until he lofted a ball to Dan at mid-off from Terry’s bowling. Molin bowled well but the batsmen survived to advance the score to 18 for 1. Andy (15) and Habby (13) were next. Again, the aim was the same but more runs were expected. Habby tried a ramp shot (been watching too much International T20) and was dropped by the Keeper (Dan) and Andy was bowled by a corker of a ball from Ricky, but they added 32 runs for the loss of only 1 wicket.
45 for 2 and victory in sight. Wez (17) and Luke (18) took the final 3 overs and as expected from some class batsmen, made it look easy. Dan went for 16 in his over and Molin for 13 before Ricky took the last over. PCC added 40 for no loss off the last 3 overs and ended on 85 for 2 and a convincing win against the league leaders by 37 runs. Could PCC catch Alibaba in the last 2 matches?
In the other match of the evening RST played SRF. SRF were doing well at 65 for 1 but had a mini collapse in the final 3 overs by losing 5 wickets. They finished on 62 for 6. RST batted well and preserved their wickets whilst SRF gave away 25 extras. RST ended on 87 for 3 and a win by 25 runs.
The results left the positions in the league unchanged but PCC were catching Alibaba and SRF were getting further behind as they seek their first victory.
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