BICC vs Gracia

See scorecard here

It was a bright and sunny day and once again I lost the toss and we were thrown into the field. So the ball was thrown to the eagerly awaiting Mohsin who came storming in for lightning quick and intimidating first over which had the opposition on the back foot from the get go. Enzo came on from "the other end" and after a few balls started to find his line and length and bowled well. Ahmad took over from Enzo and after one more overfrom Mohsin Siddhartha came on in and with a very tight first over he picked up a wicket which was aptly caught at slip by Rob. The chit chat started to lift. In Sid's second over he picked up another one with Sai taking a good catch out in the deep part of Coke Corner.With the third ball of his third over Sid managed to get another one, clean bowled! On came Rob who was fishing and fishing and tossing it up there. The fourth wicket to go down was a quickly snapped stumping from the keeper Alex off of another Sid delivery who had then bowled his four. Umer replaced him and got someone to sky a ball out to deep long on and the ball was plucked out of the air by the waiting Enzo. The following ball was hit to long off and Mohsin casually catch the ball to make it 2 in 2. Unfortunately we couldn't pull off the hat trick. The seventh wicket to fall was a good ball from Umer which bowled the batsmen. Shayne came in next and, although having some trouble to find his line in one over, managed to lure someone down the pitch and the bails where accordingly removed by Alex and we had eight down. Umer managed to get another batsmen to sky a ball and a fair easy catch was taken by myself and it was the end of the first innings with a total of 9/153 to chase.
The bowling figures were
OVERS RUNS WICKETS
Mohsin 3 25 0
Enzo 2 18 0
Ahmad 3 26 0 WHICH IF YOU TOTAL IT IS 21 OVERS!
Sidd 4 18 4
Rob 3 24 0
Umer 3 14 4
Shayne 3 24 1
Sundries 18 ( almost half as many as last match!)
Sidd and Umer opened the batting and Sidd managed 4 before one ball skipped through him and hit the stumps. Alex came in and although looked solid had the same result and he was on his way for 4. I meandered in next and after a few deliveries I "faced" a ball I couldn't play and soon left the field to be taken to the doc by Rob who kindly sacrificed his batting position. All that happened from there was second hand so forgive me if I muck up some of the details. Ahmad also had his stumps rattled with 2 on the board and Saqib was dismissed caught for nought. Somewhere in there Umer came crashing to the ground and after hurting his ankle and was carried off by the opposition after a quick massage. Shayne came in and was bowled for 2 and Umer returned with Mohsin seeing his chance to advance up the order in the absence of Rob. They managed to scrape out 15 each before Umer was also bowled and Mohsin caught (I'm assuming way way way out on the boundary!) and in came Rob who was looking quite good at the crease but after losing Enzo for 1, Sai run out I returned for two deliveries and also allowed a ball past me and had my stumps rattled and Rob was left stranded with a top score of 16 not out. Our score all out for 74 once again failing to make it past the three figure mark. Our batting these past few weeks has left much to be desired but I'm sure it'll improve!
All in all a good day in the field and a dramatic one with the bat and we polished off the day by heading down to the Shamrock to watch England vs Ireland where the English managed to break the Irish boys hearts once again with Rob the sole Englishman(/Scotsman/Welshman) cheering at the screen much to the dismay of the predominantly Irish crowd.
And that was that!

​Damien McMullen