New season takes off (sort of)

Scorecard

We had originally planned on playing L'Hospitalet CC last weekend although it was postponed due to the poor weather. There was another fiddle from Saturday to Sunday for the same reason but we finally got a game on!

The skipper Vishesh Gajjar arrived late after failing to navigate the Catalan rail system, but Maroof Shaikh won the toss and chose to bat, probably because he fancied batting before it started raining. Him and Anton Kritzinger got us off to a good and quick start and Maroof was indeed back in the "shed" before any drizzle started falling. Anton kicked on to the 40s before running himself out, grumpily blaming the fielder for brilliantly hitting the stumps (?¿?¿?¿?) as he walked off. Umer Razi hit a couple of lusty blows before his dismissal started a collapse from 110/3 to 119/7. We rallied through the final overs and finished on 140/9, losing two more wickets to run outs on the last two balls. 

We could see the clouds and heavy rainfall coming in from over the adajcent airfield, and barely a ball had been bowled in the second innings before it was really coming down. The umpires pulled us off after two expensive overs. As soon as we talked about tidying up to go home, the rain incredibly stopped and we went back out there again. Wills Camfield benefitted by taking a couple of wickets, the second a great grab down the legside as debutant Tom Blanchard gave regular keeper Umer Razi a keeping masterclass. Tom wasn't done, as he took a smart stumping off Maroof's bowling, in what turned out to be the last ball of the game. The rain had started again and increased in intensity as the new batter walked out. The umpires had had enough and called the game off with Hospitalet on 76/3 off 6.2 overs, comfortably ahead on DLS (for those that are counting such things). 

Cheers again to LHCC for organising the game. We wish them well in their first ever senior Catalan league game next Sunday!

Sam Phillipps