ECS Day Two - Magic, Spartans and Pakicare (again)

Our three fixtures on our second day of play, Day 7 of the tournament, were exactly the same as the first day and we were keen to get revenge on the three teams who beat us on the Friday!

Magic CC - scorecard
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After the opposition failed to show up on time, we were awarded the toss and captain Umer Raz chose to bowl first, going against the norm of not wanting to field in the early morning chill. 
Despite that, we got a brilliant start with their top three all dismissed for a duck as our opening bowlers of Burhan Ejaz and newly-appointed 2024 captain Shriram Bhosale picked up two and one wicket respectively. The next pair steadied the ship a bit and scored a few runs before Imran Fareed claimed the fourth wicket with his legspin. There were two wickets in the following two overs too, both of the first ball of Maxi Hoeck and Vishesh Gajjar’s overs. The score reached 105/6 when Imran ran Waqas out on the last ball of the penultimate over. Vishesh bowled the final over, which went dot ball, caught and bowled, run out to the keeper and bowled as we finished with four wickets in five balls and a team hattrick! Vishesh ended up with very nice figures of 1.4-9-3! 106 would be a very chasable total. 

Imran and wicketkeeper Maroof Shaikh opened the batting but sadly didn’t fare too much better than the Magic openers. Anton Kritzinger and Tom Coulthard came in next and did much better getting us ahead of the rate and looking ever-more likely for a first ECS victory and a great start to “Revenge Day”. When Anton was dismissed for 21 though, things went a bit south. Despite another new BICC top score (his fifth in a row!) of 42* for Hotdog Tom, he was rather let down by his batting partners at the other end who could only manage eight runs off 21 balls between them. Somehow we went from being favourites to losing the game by 20 runs.

We headed up to the stands for a couple of hours to lick our wounds.

Spartans Hospitalet - scorecard
Our second game of the day started off just the same as the first, with us being awarded the toss due to another no-show and again Umer chose to bowl first. 
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The Spartans however got off to a much better and quicker start than Magic had, despite the loss of one opener in the second over after he nicked through to Maroof off Shriram. The next partnership lasted almost six overs and put on 80 runs, the vast majority coming from the opener Hussain. The partnership was once again broken by golden arm Vishesh. Sam Phillipps came on for the next over and got the wicket of Ibrahim (66) caught by Maxi Hoeck in the deep, just a ball after Maxi dropped one in the same position. Vishesh, still not finished, claimed two more scalps in the next over for another cheap three-fer (3/16) before Burhan returned to bowl the final over. It was to be an expensive one and propelled The Spartans to 140/6, despite a wicket off the final ball. 

In another change at the top, Umer decided to open with Imran but the skipper was bowled in the first over. Anton was also bowled in the next over for a duck and Tom broke his record-streak by scoring just six. It was to be a tale of the middle order, as no one could stay in the middle for long to support Imran, with Shriram also falling cheaply before Imran was frustrated to be given out LBW (with the oppo almost definitely appealing for caught behind). Maroof came and went before finally James Bentley (29) and Maxi (13*) put some momentum back in the innings. Sadly the required rate had just gotten away from us and it was to be too little, too late. We finished on 114/7, 26 runs short in what had looked like the most winnable game of the day.

Pakicare - scorecard
Having just watched Pakicare batter the living daylights out of The Spartans, breaking various ECN records along the way, we weren’t so confident of getting revenge here! Still, stranger things have happened in sport…

In a break from the day’s tradition, Umer had to actually go to the middle and toss but still managed to win and chose to bat this time. Our innings really struggled to get going and only top scorer and number seven bat Shriram (with just 13) and number eight Vishesh (two balls faced, two fours scored) managed to score at anything like the sort of rate required in a T10 match against the former European champions. The Pakicare boys have clearly hit some form and we stumbled along to 74/7.

Knowing that victory from this point was looking almost impossible, we set out to the field hoping to stop their juggernaut and at least delay defeat as long as possible. Golden arm Vishesh was to open the bowling, having been forced out of the attack in our previous game against Pakicare after a straight drive went straight onto his ankle. He would get our long sought after revenge with the first ball of the innings, as record breaker and Spanish international Muhammad Ihsan hit the ball down to Shriram at long on. The whole team went wild to the calls of “you’d think they won the tournament!” and Pakicare were 0/1. “Just nine more, lads!”, could we, could we? In short, no, and that was to be the end of our fun. Over the following 29 balls Pakicare knocked off the required runs to claim victory. We had at least avoided being the quickest defeat of the day!
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So, revenge day didn’t exactly go to plan… On Thursday we will face Badalona, still stinging from their three losses against us two weeks ago, and Catalunya Jaguars who we also faced in the Northeastern league back in June. 

Sam Phillipps

Shaking hands with Pakicare at the end of the game.