A disappointing chase vs Poble Sec

See scorecard here

So we lost the toss and they elected to bat on a rather wet and skiddy style of day which had us licking our lips in anticipation. Nirjon opened the bowling with Siddhartha and although lightning quick he had a bit of difficulty finding his line. Sidd bowled beautifully. Nirjon picked up the first wicket with a great yorker which cleaned up the opening batsman and first blood was drawn. Sidd picked up a caught and bowled from the opposition captain and after a rather interesting send off (not condoned by BICC) we had two in the bag and the ball rolling. Sai took over from Nirjon and bowled superbly maintaining the pressure and not let the batsmen escape. Our fielding was outstanding on all accounts and just to prove it so, our very our South African VC, in pure Jonty Rhodes style, picked up a run out as the batsman foolishly tried out Alex's arm and was came off second best and he was on his was back to the pavillion. Mohsin after getting lost in the wilderness finally strolled in and took the ball. The effect was immediate. He grabbed a quick caught behind with Nadim and then came time for the Umer show! In our very first (at least to my knowledge) Hattrick (should have been a double but you know how it goes) in BICC Umer snatched the following wickets. 1st an LBW, 2nd a catch at slip by the Prez Rob and the 3rd clean bowled which was followed by a lot of slapping and cheering. He almost had the 4th but the appeal was answered with a shake of the head from the umpire. Ted was brilliant in the outfield and allowed nothing to get past and Nirjon was firing the ball in like a NY yankees pitcher. Umer grabbed a 4th caught by Shayne and I also got a catch from Umer who had 5 and just to rub it in picked up a 6th as he cleaned up the last wicket for startling figures of 6/19 off 4. Our fielding backed up our bowling and we had a meager target of 109 to chase which looked within our grasp or so we thought..........
So we set to the task of chasing down the total with Umer and Sidd at the helm. In a bit of role reversal with Sidd the anchor Umer, still suffering from shock, was dismissed caught behind 7(13). Alex came in and, as always, was looking the goods before being bowled 2 (6) which brought in Rob who got our second highest score of 8(10) as he was bowled on a low bouncing wicket. Sid went about his/Umers game calling some interesting calls. I came in and managed 7(7) before also being cleaned up. Nadim was caught for 1 (13) and Shayne managed 4(7) and was dismissed caught behind. Mohsin 6(9), Nirjon 2(2) and Ted 0(2) fell leaving Sai 0(4) last man standing for a total of 76 only one batsman managing to get to double figures. and that was that! So our batting left something to be desired and unfortunately couldn't back up our bowling and fielding effort.
Credit where credit is due so hats off to Umer and also a big congrats to Nadim for his big news and a thank you to Sunny for being twelth man and helping out in the field and with the scorebook. Also good to not see a single dropped catch in the field! Keep working on it boys well get 'em next time.
Over and out!
Damien McMullen