ECS Day 6 - Catalunya Red, Sohal Hospitalet & Bengali

By this point, our target was clear. We needed two victories from our remaining five games in order to progress (with one of them against Sohal Hospitalet), although that relied on Sohal’s other game going our way. 

Catalunya Red
We started the day against Catalunya Red, who had improved significantly through the tournament. We won the toss and elected to bowl. With six great overs from Shriram Bhosale (2/20), Burhan Ejaz (2/21) and Vishesh Gajjar (2/17) and two slightly more expensive wickets for James Bentley (2/33) we limited them to a very chasable 128/8. 

Despite a great bowling performance, our batting was well below par. Openers Ali Warriach (24 off 14) and Maroof Shaikh (13 off 9) got us off to a reasonable start putting on 36 for the first wicket in 3.2 overs. Sadly we would lose two more wickets without scoring another run, a sign of things to come. We collapsed to 62/6 before again losing our last four wickets without scoring a run as we were bowled out in the eighth over. 

The group sat down to lick their wounds and watch the crucial Bengali vs Sohal Hospitalet game. There was bad news for us as a shock win for Sohal saw us mathematically eliminated from the tournament. 

Sohal
With heads now down, the next game didn’t provide many positives beyond winning the toss. Sohal were put into bat and their opener Asjad Butt scored a rapid 116* (37 balls) to fire his team to a mammoth 178/5. Extras were their second top scorer with 19, as to show his influence!

Our collapse from the first game continued, and we were 19/5 after the three over powerplay, with the top four batters only providing one run between them. The lower-middle order provided a bit more, with skipper Umer top-scoring with 22* off 14 from number eight. Again, extras was the second top scorer but there’s a difference between 116 and 22! We finished on 68/9, at least avoiding the embarrassment of being bowled out twice in a row. 

Bengali
We won our third toss of the day and stand-in captain Shriram elected to bat (with Umer nursing a hand injury from the previous game). There was at least an improvement in the batting in the evening game as the opening partnership between Imran Fareed and Maroof lasted four overs! They were dismissed in consecutive balls before the skipper fell to the team-hattrick ball for his third duck of the day. Ali (19* off 15) and Burhan (29* off 15) put on a 55-run partnership and took us to 114/4.

Bengali made fairly light work of the chase, despite two great overs from James (1/13) and an over from Imran that went for just one run (but don’t ask him about the second over!). They completed it with 9 balls to spare. 

Just one day and two games left, and the only pride left to play for was not finishing bottom of the group…

​​Sam Phillipps