Burned by the Dragons

On Thursday afternoon we faced Catalunya Dragons for the first time. They had started the tournament late and slowly and were still looking for their first win.

Game 1
Shriram Bhosale lost the toss and the Dragons chose to bat. It was to be a tough 45 minutes for the bowlers, with Imran Fareed’s bowling the most economical at 13 an over. The powerplay went for 50 and we finally got a breakthrough in the fourth, as Dhiman toe-ended it off James Bentley, with Shriram aggravating his wrist injury in catching it. Runs continued to flow as was shown in Zeeshan Dildar’s first (eventful) over, with a wicket in the middle breaking up a run of sixes. Imran came back and picked up a deserved wicket in the sixth but the Dragons were heading towards a monster score. Further wickets came for James and Zain Bashir but could not slow them down. The final over went for 27 despite there being three run outs and saw Shriram have to be removed from the attack. The Dragons finished on 186/8, and we had a difficult task to even get the losing bonus point from the game. 
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With the realistic target of 131 to get that one point, our now usual opening pair of Imran and Ash Reynolds went out. Imran got off to a slow start but Ash at the other end was flying and reached 38 off 14 balls before chopping onto his stumps. This woke Imran up and he suddenly started hitting the ball to all parts, and we started creeping up towards the required rate. Imran was brilliantly caught at short leg for 45 off 22 and with no one else able to contribute even double figures, we ended on 113/5 and the four points went to the Dragons. 

Game 2
This time Shriram did win the toss and elected to bat, although the openers did not fare as well. Both ended up walking back to the dugout in the second over, to be joined shortly by Jack Jewson when he was run out brilliantly from the deep having been dropped. Umer Razi also went cheaply but the fifth-wicket partnership was at least a good one. James Bentley, having not scored off his first five balls suddenly exploded. He hogged the strike for most of the next few overs and reached a maiden 50 on just his 19th delivery, but was out next ball. He had been ably supported by Zeeshan, who was also providing some lusty blows but none of the bottom five scored more than two runs and we finished on a well-below par 115/9. 

Again, our realistic target here was to claim the losing bonus point, by making them need more than seven overs to chase the score down. Despite two boundaries from the first two balls, Vishesh Gajjar’s first over went for just nine runs and it seemed that this could be possible. The scoring rate improved significantly in the next two overs, but then Vishesh came back for his second over, conceding just three runs this time. Either side of that over, James claimed two (very expensive) wickets to keep his tally ticking up. The fifth, sixth and seventh overs went for 64 runs, but couldn’t quite reach the target in time. Just one more ball was needed to get the final run but we had at least managed to claim a point from a bruising day. 

We’re back again on Saturday against Catalunya Red, who have also petered off after a good start.
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Sam Phillipps