Pattaya Cricket Club convincingly beat Asia United by 34 runs in the final of the 2011 Southerners T20 competition last weekend. Pattaya C.C. progressed to the final of the tournament on the back of 3 wins in the group stage of the competition, including an impressive victory against the Southerners C.C. who had previously never been beaten in the tournament’s history.
Pattaya C.C.’s strength had been their batting, they had amassed over 550 runs and contained the highest run scorer of the tournament –Mazhar in the team. However, Saturday’s final was the turn of the bowlers and fielders with an outstanding all round performance to restrict Asia United to only 103 runs off the 20 overs.
The Pattaya Cricket Club team celebrate their victory in the Southerners T20 tournament.
Tensions had been running high before the game, due to some good natured cybernet banter. Pattaya claimed its man of the match in the previous game -Hansie – would hit 3 sixes off the first 3 balls he faced after a warm-up consisting of 3 cigarettes and a large portion of chicken balti. This proved to fire up Asia United as they won the toss and elected to field.
Pattaya C.C. got off to a solid start with captain Sunny and the evergreen John G hitting some beautiful shots off some excellent Asia United bowling, to progress to 32 before the first wicket went down. That brought the arrival of Mazhar to the crease, who was yet to get out in the tournament having scored over 100 runs in the process.
United were ecstatic in getting his wicket and they saw a chance to squeeze the Pattaya innings. United felt they had the momentum and the situation in the middle became heated. Pattaya C.C.’s batting remained strong, with every player in the team contributing a useful amount of runs, without one player dominating. Tauseef top scored with 34, including some monster sixes as Pattaya C.C. closed on a total of 137.
This total was Pattaya’s smallest of the tournament by some 60 runs but this could be credited to the slow outfield and some superb bowling and fielding from Asia United.
Pattaya C.C. needed a good, tight start with the ball and that came in the form of Yasir, Shaan and Andy Emery, who restricted United to 28 for 2 from the first 7 overs. This increased the pressure on the batsmen, but United’s Asif led a counter attack smashing a few devastating blows with his bat. Just as Asif was bringing the game back in the balance, star bowler Usman knocked his middle stump out of the ground. Pattaya then turned the screw with a great catch from Dev and outstanding wicket-keeping from captain Sunny. It was left to fast bowler Janu to claim the last two victims.
It ended up a convincing win in which every member of the side contributed and gave Pattaya Cricket Club their second piece of silverware this season.
