Report by Stuart Hamilton
The Patong openers got off to a steady start with Imtiyaz Mushtaq in particular, looking in fluent touch and finding the boundary regularly. Mushtaq and Raju had accumulated a partnership of 69 in the 11th over before ICC made a double breakthrough. First, Raju (14) was caught by Takur off the bowling of Shahnawaz with Imtiyaz (48) following almost immediately, trying one big shot too many and being bowled by Chand.
This brought two new batsmen to the crease in Paddy Morton (10) and Stuart Hamilton (17). Both played positively and pushed the ball around until they were both caught on the boundary from successive balls from Shahnawaz with the score on 98, Morton at deep square leg and Hamilton at long on.
For the third time this brought two new batsmen to the crease, this time Simon Wetherell (1) and Anthony Van Blerk (9). Wetherell soon became Shahnawazs fourth victim, caught by Virdicar.
Pir Sami then strode to the crease and dispatched his first three balls to the boundary in an entertaining innings, pushing the score on to 124 in partnership with Van Blerk before the former was run out. Van Blerk immediately followed, well caught at long off by Ravi Naik.
At the end of the 20 overs Patong had accumulated 131/7 and knew that they would need to bowl and field well to be in with a chance of winning.
The ICC innings started steadily and openers Shah (3) and Mydeen (24) had put on 20 before Imtiyaz had Shah well caught at point by Morton. Next up was Chand (5) who didn’t last long being caught at point by Wetherell from the bowling of Raju. Mydeen was next to go having hit some belligerent boundaries was pinned LBW from the leg spin of Morton.
New man Virdicar (2) soon followed, top edging a Justin Swart delivery to Hamilton at short third man to leave ICC precariously placed at 56/4 from 10 overs. Shahnawaz (25) then joined Naiq (31) who had been steadily accumulating at the other end to put on 32 for the fifth wicket before Sami held a steepling catch from Naiq off the bowling of Morton. Vaiganker (6) then joined Shahnawaz before he was run out by Raju.
Kumar was the new batsman and a few big hits by Shahnawaz meant that 12 runs were required from the last over being bowled by Raju. Shahnawaz calmly dispatched the first ball for four but the batmen struggled for the next four balls leaving 3 required to win from the last ball. Shahnawaz could only squirt the ball to short third man, leaving Kumar to be comfortably run out and Patong winning by 1 run.
It was a very closely fought game with both teams playing in good spirit, which bodes well for the rest of the season.
There will be a short break now in the schedule for Christmas and New Year, with the next fixture being the “Shezza Cup” between Patong CC and Thalang CC on January 10.
There are cricket matches nearly every weekend at the purpose-built Alan Cooke Ground in Thalang.
Directions to this first-class cricketing facility can be found at www.acgphuket.com. Anyone who may be interested in getting involved in playing cricket, umpiring/scoring or simply wish to watch and support at a social level, please get in touch by emailing phuketcricketgroup@gmail.com. Alternatively, you can log onto www.phuketcricket.com and leave a message and/or contact us via our Phuket Cricket Group Facebook page.
We welcome all players of any standard to join our highly social, laid back yet competitive cricketing fraternity here in Phuket. We look forward to hearing from you soon!.