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Having been originally carded to open the tournament, we eventually got our campaign going on the fifth day. It was an early 8:45 start with games to come against Magic CC, Spartans Hospitalet CC and Pakicare CC. Magic CC - scorecard Captain Umer Razi, after arriving to the ground in near pitch blackness, won the toss and decided to avoid fielding in the cold. Umer opened the batting with Maxi Hoeck, who was out quickly. Keeper Dev Mahadevan came in next and would finish on a well-made 29* from 22 balls. Umer was caught having made 23 off 15 which brought Imran Fareed to the crease. He smashed 5 sixes on the way to a 19-ball 53 before eventually being dismissed in the final over. We posted an underpar 112/3 from our 10 overs. Magic had started the tournament well so we knew we’d have to bowl well. Their openers got them off to a great start, helped by a few comical dropped catches, before Anton “Johnny Vegetables” took a good catch off the bowling of Imran. In the very next over, Mr Vegetables would get a wicket of his own and get us excited that we might just defend it. Sadly, despite a third wicket near the end for Umer, we just didn’t have enough runs on the board and Magic finished the chase with eight balls to spare. Spartans Hospitalet CC - scorecard After a two hour break, we were back to face Spartans Hospitalet. Having lost the toss, we were asked to bowl first. Spartans were yet to win a game so we were hopeful of getting our first victory! Maxi and Burhan Ejaz, unused in the first game, opened the bowling and got us off to a great start by really keeping the runs down and picking up a wicket a piece in their first overs. Vishesh Gajjar bowled the third and another wicket fell to a great run out by the skipper. James Bentley bowled the fourth, picking up a wicket with his first ball and we were well on top. An expensive over from Shriram Bhosale followed, before Maxi and Burhan returned to pick up another wicket each and two very cheap overs. Sadly the final two overs from Vishesh and Will Camfield were slightly less cheap and they finished on 115/5. It was still a below-par score that we were confident of chasing. Umer opened with Tom Coulthard in something of a surprise - his previous experience opening the batting on a Youtube stream ended with him dismissed before the stream even started! A slow first over built the pressure and Umer edged off in the second over. Our middle order and Tom performed well, with Tom (27), Shriram (12) and Anton (23) all hitting with a strike rate in excess of 225. With the game ours for the taking, the steady flow of wickets wasn’t helping and Jon Wong and Dev weren’t quite able to keep up with the rate and we finished on 97/6. A second disappointing loss in a game that should have been ours. Pakicare CC - scorecard Our final game of the day was against Pakicare, the European T10 champions in 2022 and the first team we had played against before. Whilst less optimistic here, we were hopeful of putting up a good show and giving them a tough game. Umer won the toss and chose to bowl. It was a tough 45 minutes in the field, with every bowler bar one getting dispatched around the ground by Spanish international Muhammad Ihsan on his way to 120* off just 40 balls. Vishesh was the one bowler to really impress, and the only one to pick up a wicket in his 1.5 overs, that went for just 15 runs. Only a blow to the ankle off a straight drive could stop him! His 11 balls “restricted” Pakicare to “just” 182/2, with the other wicket a run out executed by Vishesh and keeper Dev. In this game Imran (27) was sent up the order to open with Tom and the two did well at the start, albeit considerably behind the 18 runs an over required! Umer came and went quickly and Shri was dismissed first ball for a “Golden Derek”. Jon and Tom saw out the remaining overs. Jon finished on 16* and Tom carried his bat for 32* as we ended on 91/3. Three defeats on our first day, but a great time was had by all! We’re back on Sunday to play exactly the same teams in exactly the same order in what some are calling Revenge Day! Sam Phillipps
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Ahead of our European Cricket Series debut in a couple of weeks, we organised a series of T10 practice matches against Badalona CC to get ourselves accustomed to this shortest form of the game. Despite the organisation being last minute, we had a mammoth 19 players make themselves available for the three games. There were so many indeed that one ended up playing for Badalona! More on him later… First game (scorecard) The first game saw club debuts for Imran Fareed, Kieran O’Donnell, Dave Martin and Vrishab Kandal. We lost the toss and were put in the field. Kieran opened the bowling with James “Aussie James” Bentley who got a wicket with a beauty of an inswinger in his second over. Despite a few relatively easy catches going down, the wickets started to tumble. Anton Kritzinger got one, Imran got one with his fourth ball for the club bowled, before claiming a second with a great caught and bowled next ball. Lewis, our aforementioned Badalona player, walked out and crumbled under the pressure of the hattrick ball, stamping on his leg stump to be dismissed hit wicket and give Imran a hattrick on debut! Dave also picked up his first wicket for the club while Sam Phillipps claimed two wickets with his last two balls. The final over was bowled by acting captain Shriram Bhosale, which only lasted two balls as Dave did a brilliant run out from third man and Shriram had the last batter caught by Imran as we finished with four wickets in four balls. A chase of 61 looked relatively easy. Vrishab and Anton opened the batting and the latter certainly made light work of it, scoring 35* off 12 balls. He retired to leave Maroof Shaikh to hit the winning runs and give us a first victory of the day! Second game (scorecard) In the second game, regular captain Umer Razi was back in the team and won the toss, this time we would bat first. Full of confidence from the first game we set about hitting as big a total as possible, knowing that we had set the boundaries considerably longer than will be the case in the ECS. There were two more debutants in this game, Rabia Mushtaq (our third female player of the year) and Will Camfield. Our top two run scorers of the year so far, Umer (27 off 20) and Shriram (20 off 10), opened the batting and got us off to a quick start. Imran came in at 3, fresh from his hattrick, and showed what he could do with the bat too. He continued from where the openers had left off, whacking 40* off 19 balls. There were smart cameos for Nathan Blyth and Maroof before keeper Dev Mahadevan joined Imran getting 19 off 8 balls. We scored 138/4 from our ten overs. Badalona batted much better in this second game and wickets were much harder to come by. Debutan Will and Supun Shalitha opened the bowling, keeping it relatively tight and building pressure from the get go, as did first change Imran. But it was the introduction of Uswa Syed that really changed the game as her first over went for just two runs and saw the back of both opening batters. Not done there, she got a run out later on to make sure she had a say in all three wickets. Badalona finished on 111/3, 27 runs short. Two from two! Third game (scorecard) Having won the toss again, Umer decided to bat again. This time another changed team saw Simon Eldridge open with Khyzer Nawaz. It was a slower start this game as the pair struggled to get the opening bowlers, including 11-year-old Gabriel, away. Gabriel would eventually dismiss Khyzer as he tried to hit out, only to find the gloves of father Lewis behind the stumps. (Yes Khyzer, it was impossible to write this report without mentioning that). When Simon was finally dismissed, it brought Dev to the crease and he continued on from the previous game, this time with longer at the crease he reached a magnificent debut 50 off 22 balls with ten fours (many of which will be Maximooooos by the time he plays at that ground again). He ended up with over half the runs as we finished on 98/3. The lower total meant Badalona could sniff a chance of victory and they started well reaching 49 without loss. Joseph Danam was introduced to the attack, and just like Uswa in the previous game, got the wickets of both openers to leave Badalona rocking. When Aussie James claimed the wicket of their captain Adnan, we sensed the game was up and eventually they finished on 75/4, as James claimed a second wicket from the last ball of the day. A great day for BICC, with a super turnout and three victories to warm us up for the ECS tournament. Make sure to tune in on December 1st for our first game! Thanks to Badalona for playing in a great spirit, as always. Sam Phillipps  Saturday scorecard Sunday scorecard The countdown to the first weekend of November, for our now traditional annual trip to Menorca, is always a long one but one that’s well worth the wait! Most of the players arrived on Friday, with some in the morning to work “from home” and others in the evening after actually slogging it out at work. The nine of us there went for a curry and a few drinks in the port in Mahón. It was a very windy weekend, with temperatures having suddenly dropped to give it a properly autumnal feel, albeit it was still warm enough when in the sun. With the recent change of the clocks, an earlier than usual start of 11am was agreed to. For the second year running, the Saturday game would be to compete for the Manners-Paterson trophy, with our Balearic hosts holding it having beaten us comfortably last year. With a stronger team at our disposal this year, and some better form behind us, we were confident of taking it home this time around! Umer Razi started well by winning the toss and deciding to bat (/ let most of the team relax/ let himself watch the Pakistan vs New Zealand game). Maroof Shaikh and Zeeshan Dildar opened the batting and very quickly the bookies were slashing the odds on the “Next wicket: run out” option. The inevitable eventually happened with the score on 20, as Zeeshan set off for a quick single that wasn’t on, slipped and was helpless as the bails were removed from the non-striker’s end. Captain Umer came in and left the World Cup game for a whole two balls before sitting down again. Maroof accumulated from one end whilst wickets tumbled at the other, Damien McMullen (caught and bowled) and Nathan Blyth (hilariously run out in exactly the same fashion as Zeeshan) both scoring 7. When Maroof skied one to point for the fifth wicket we were only on 57 and starting to make early afternoon back-up plans. Fortunately, Shriram Bhosale and Jack Jewson had only ideas of us playing cricket as they fashioned a 83-run partnership, with Shri getting a third fifty of the year at rapid pace and Jack playing more of an anchor role at the other end (he barely got to double figures by the end of it!). Shriram (67) eventually played a false shot and was punished for it. Jon Wong, sat getting pad-rash for so long, was naturally LBW first ball. Jack accelerated for a bit longer before being dismissed. This brought James Bentley and Leandro Español to the crease in what turned out to be the last partnership. James blasted the ball all around Biniparell on his way to a quick 34 with Leandro finishing on a useful 7*. We ended up on a respectful 193/8, a good recovery from where we had been! After a delicious tea/ lunch, we were back out in the field and were pumped up following a rare attempt at fielding drills(!). James and Zeeshan opened the bowling well, but the first half of the innings turned out to be the Tom “Hot Dog” Coulthard show. Having brilliantly caught the dangerous Adam Levin in the deep, he was brought into the attack alongside Sam Phillipps and proceeded to blast through the upper and middle order in his six-over spell. Two edges through to Jack behind the stumps were followed by catches by Damien and Shriram before the best caught and bowled you’ll ever see as he claimed a maiden BICC 5fer. This left Menorca on 80/6, which shortly became 91/7 when Shriram got in on the act. Confidence was high, but we knew Menorca batted all the way down to 11 and were not out of it. Joe Brayne came in at 9 and steadied the ship for a bit with Billy Johnson, before he was run out by Sam from third man to make the score 120/8. This merely brought Simon Cotton to the crease and the two of them made a brilliant 68-run partnership. That was only broken when Umer brought himself into the attack late on and bowled Simon. Stalwart Roy Sturgeon played out the rest of that over before Joe completed the win with a boundary at the start of the next. Another Menorca-BICC classic, with the hosts this time coming out on top by just one wicket, with only three overs left. We were naturally dejected but soon cheered up with the festivities and barbecue at the ground, despite having to hide in the pavilion to get out of the ever-stronger wind! Sunday was due to be more of a friendly affair. This time Umer lost the toss against Sunday captain Markus Dow and we were asked to bowl. The wind had died down a bit overnight but there were still strong gusts going around. James and Zeeshan again opened the bowling. We were much more sluggish in the field today, despite actually getting a relatively early night on Saturday! Our mood was not helped by many, many missed chances and the Menorcan top order taking advantage of our mistakes. Zeeshan got a wicket early on, but that was followed by two 80+-run partnerships taking the hosts to 184/3 and the potential of a big score. We managed to restrict the lower-middle order’s scoring rate, with Shriram claiming 3/32 helping massively. Menorca eventually set us 241 to win from our 40 overs. After another great, expansive (end-of-season “everything must go”-style) tea we set about the chase. Despite them managing a much bigger score than we’d seen the day before, we knew their strength today had been their batting and we were hopeful of chasing it down. Jon, on a king pair, opened with Leandro, in his last game before moving to Madrid in a bit of a mix-up of the order. They got us off to a solid start, with Jon registering his highest BICC score (34). The third wicket partnership was a big one for us, with Umer and Maroof both scoring big fifties. Umer was rather hogging the strike as he approached his illusive maiden century, and the pressure clearly told when he played a horrible swipe and was given out LBW on 95. D’oh! Better luck next time, Umi, great 50 though! Maroof was now the undisputed senior batter and had a more willing runner in Nathan Blyth at the other end. He also surpassed his highest BICC score (72) whilst Nathan contributed a “famous” (his word) 15* as we won the game by seven wickets with just over four overs left. We would at least return to Barcelona with a win, even if not the trophy we might have liked! Tom was chosen as player of the weekend for his 5fer on Saturday, and alongside Sam, was kindly gifted a Menorca CC floppy for his efforts. We’d like to thank Menorca again for their ever-improving hospitality and for the two great games. November 2nd 2024 is only 362 days away! Sam Phillipps  |
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