BICC vs Poble Sec CC

See scorecard here

We wanted to bowl - I lost the toss - and Poble Sec opted to bat.
Siding 5 new players (3 quicks, 1 left arm medium and 1 definite candidate for new opener) plus 4 established BICC crew, we took the game to the opposition straight away.
Our openers Harin Palla (2wkts.) and Aditya Vasudevan (3wkts.) piled on initial pressure with great accuracy and threat (although the scorebook might not bare true testament to quite how tightly they bowled!)
And a bowlers match it turned out to be. Mohsin Nawaz (2 wkts, including the crucial one of Saqib) stormed in with quailty pace and James Riley (2wkts.)had them floundering with left arm variation.
Despite a wet and unkind outfield (thats my excuse anyway) the fielding was sharp and we took our catches well. Harin's take of Saqib's middled cover drive being the pick of the bunch.
Damien McMullen was set up to bowl the final overs and bowled his solitary one well, maintaining the pressure for Aditya to take the last wicket in the 17th.
Its worth adding here that we started against a side of 7 men and by the end of their innings had to dismis a team of 10. This situation kept on happily evolving until sometime later we spotted they were fielding 12, and Saqib duly sent a teenager in jeans packing to the stands.
But we cannot let these niggles become an issue. BICC WILL WIN GAMES ON THEIR OWN TERMS.
So, we were set a total of '88' and could easily have got there if we had just kept our heads. Damo opened with Manasseh Anand Makhesh and both straight bats looked in good nick until a silly run out in the second over. With the ball skidding through a bit - but really only one bowler causing problems (their captain) - the batsmen should have made a better fist of it.
Only a couple of players making double figures isn't good enough and we let our bowlers down badly. 2 of the top order batsmen were run out and although blame has to be shared in these situations we also have to prevent them from happening.
So we ended up '12' short.

Rob Paterson