The match was played on Saturday afternoon, 18th March, at Horseshoe Point on a bright and blustery day against the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) from Bangkok. This was another match in which PCC bowlers restricted the opposition batsmen and then chased down the score with relative ease. AIT managed 170 all out, a sub-par score at HSP, after 24.1 overs with Rabpreet Singh and Jainish Parikh both taking 3 wickets. Ryan Driver then dominated the batting with a splendid 78 from 44 balls.
AIT won the toss, witnessed by Sanjeev Jayasuriya, and decided to bat, which suited PCC. Pratyush Dos and Farhad Zulfiqur opened the batting against Ryan Driver and Rabpreet Singh. Pratyush seemed to like Ryan’s pace and managed a series of 4’s and a 6 before Farhad got a top edge was caught by Rabpreet for a duck. 21 for 1 after the 3rd over. El Dutchie’s spin was brought into the attack but Sriven Satya and Pratyush were able to score reasonably well with 22 from his first 3 overs. El Dutchie was unlucky when Jainish dropped Pratyush on the mid-wicket boundary when he was on 31 – that proved to be a costly mistake as Pratyush went on to score 63.
Meanwhile, Ryan had steadied the flow of runs from the other end and had Srivas bowled for 15 in the 7th over, 46 for 2. Ryan finished with 5 overs, 26 for 2. Habby Singh entered the bowling attack whilst El Dutchie continued with spin and Chaitanya Baba entered as the new batsmen. The run rate slowed as Chaitanya plugged away with singles and Habby gave away wides and a no ball. However, Habby’s pace and swing clattered Chaitanya’s stumps on 8 at 74 for 3 in the 13th over. Rabpreet took over from El Dutchie and had immediate success when Deepak Chowdhary went for a duck. Drinks were taken early and Pratyush was losing partners.
Another bowling change brought rewards when Jainish had Rahul Raj caught at mid-wicket for 5 by Hansie Singh, 89 for 5. AIT made a little recovery at this point as Aditaya Metta and Pratyush pushed on, helped by an awful over from Hansie which went for 26. El Dutchie had bad luck again in his final over when he forced Aditaya, on 9, to sky a ball to nowhere which Habby promptly dropped – yet another expensive mistake as he went on to score 38. Nonetheless, Jainish bowled him on 136 for 6 and then bowled Janith Gallage for a golden duck. AIT were struggling with 5 overs to go.
It was not long before another wicket fell. This time it was Vivek Vinjamiri who was caught and bowled by Habby for another duck. Pratyush was still hitting boundaries, but finally his luck ran out when he found Wez Masterton on the boundary off Rabpreet’s bowling. 161 for 9. Vidath Singara managed 15 runs before he ran out of partners as Rabreet had Vamshi Reddy LBW for 2 and AIT were all out for 170 from 24 overs and 1 ball. Jainish was 3 for 26 and Rabpreet was 3 for 12. A good effort but too many extras (24).
Wez and Ryan opened the PCC batting against Aditaya and Janith. 9 off the first over was good but the second over was better as Ryan hit Janith for 2 6’s and 2 4’s in successive balls for 21 from the over and Janith was removed. Aditaya got the same treatment from Wez and he too was removed. Vidath and Chaitanya took over the bowling but suffered similar fates until Vidath had Wez caught by Chaitanya for 23 off Vidath, 71 for 1 in the 6th over. Luke stokes took the crease and kept the run rate racing along at about 10 per over with Chaitanya Janith and Aditaya receiving significant punishment. However, AIT were unlucky when Ryan was dropped by Patyrush off Chaitanya when on 52.
The 100 was reached in the 9th over and the punishment continued at pace until the 14th over when Ryan was bowled by Janith for 78 at 139 for 2. Luke tried to carry the attack but he fell shortly after for a sold 39 when caught by Chaitanya off Janith in the 16th over. Jainith Parikh for PCC faced a lot of dot balls, whilst Trevor Moolman had a brief appearance for 2, caught by Chaitanya off Vidath. This brought Rabpreet Singh to the crease and he immediately went on the attack against Chaitanya for a 6 and Jainish concluded the match with a boundary 4 for PCC to win by 6 wickets with 6 overs to spare. The MotM award was given to Ryan Driver for his 78 and 2 wickets.
Elsewhere in the Bangkok Cricket League, The British Club lost to Kerala Strikers which meant PCC advanced to 3rd place with`12 points and still have 4 and 3 matches in hand over Pakistan CC in 2nd place and Bangkok CC in 1st place on 16 points. A top place finish is certainly possible and advantageous when going into the final with the top four clubs.
PCC would like to thank their sponsors, the Outback Sports Bar, the Magic bar, The Ayen Bar and the PSG for their continued support.
