BICC first league match in 9 years!

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Once again we travelled to Riudarenes for a Catalan league fixture, this time against Trinitat Stars. Our team had no fewer than four debutants – Tommy Creagh, Shriram Bhosale, James Smith and Todd Fraser (the latter two had already been involved as 12th men). Sid Tewari won the toss and we decided to bowl.

The opening pair of Stu Boyd and Shriram got us under way, with little luck. They were replaced after 7 overs by the spin pair of Sid and Tommy, who immediately got stuck in to clawing back the match. Sid got a wicket first ball and fourth ball, before three more wickets (two for Sid, and a first for Tommy) in three overs reduced Trinitat from 51/0 to 74/5. Tommy would go on to claim three more wickets to finish with very fine debut figures of 4/32 from his 6 overs. With spin clearly working well, Umer Razi came on to bowl, with less success before Sid came back to clean up the tail along with the returning Shriram (1/32) who claimed his maiden wicket. Sid had picked up consecutive five-fers, finishing with 5/14 from just 5.1 overs. Trinitat Stars were bowled out for 119 from 21.1 overs.

BICC went out to chase the low score knowing that time was on their side. Maroof Shaikh and Burhan Ejaz opened the batting, playing well and settling the nerves with a steady 21-run partnership. When Burhan got out, he was followed by Stu first ball. This brought Maroof and Umer together, who once again steadied the ship and took BICC to the halfway mark runs-wise. A little wobble followed, as we collapsed from 59/2 to 81/7, as Maroof (23) and Umer (20) were followed cheaply by Nick Parkes, Shriram and James. Captain Sid came in at 9 to join President Damien. When the latter was run out for 17, we had already passed into triple figures and could smell our first league victory. With Sid (21*) scoring most of the runs, he and Todd Fraser (4*) took BICC home with 8 balls to spare.
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For the first time in 9 years, BICC had won a Catalan league match!  

Sam Phillipps

p.s. you can read Cricket España's report of this historical game here