At last an exciting match.
Our second match was scheduled to start again at 12 but now on Kickers ground (old ground of Qui vive).Most of the guys I remembered playing against in friendlies so I already expected some heavy resistance.

Weather wasn't much different than last week therefore opted to field first after winning the toss.

Also because I've had numerous experiences with 'asian' teams umpiring so fielding first is good to know the standard.
Zee and I opened the bowling and were pretty much on target. Both gave just 20 runs in our first 5 over spells so decent start. Especially knowing the pitch was so bouncy that even a squashball would bounce like a tennisball.

Just to get back to what I wrote before, two deadstraight lbw decisions were put down: yorkers hitting backleg infront of middlestump.
Luckily for the umpire he just knew to say 'not out' and couldn't give any explanation. We accept the judgement of the umpire so it's just 'not out'.
Zee was replaced by Ali and had a slight difficulty hitting the line especially after cleanbowling their set batsman, celebrating then the no-ball signal came....
He shook it off of him and in his 4th over he bowled bat no.2. 55/1.
Since they didn't want to give out their opener, Asif and Khurram came into attack. Asif doing what he does best is containing the batsmen and let them make the mistakes. So no. 3 did and Asif got his wicket lbw.....even we were surprised. On the other hand, the batsman didn't offer a shot so can't be too much creative with an excuse. 60/3.
Khurram on the other end didn't have his usual luck and was replaced by myself.
Bowling is still not really clicking for me in the last couple of games so after two overs and still no wicket, I replaced myself with Guy.
It proved to be a good one and he got rewarded by bowling the batsman in his first over. 85/4.
Asif kept containing the batsmen from his end but after Guy was hit for a couple, it was time to change him so Zee came back.
Bowling from certain ends does matter and the end where Zee bowled from didn't do him any good, two consecutive boundaries proved it.
Took him off and Mehran too got an over to show his skills. Unfortunately after his over, he had a rough landing while diving to catch a ball so had to be taken off after his over.
Their captain got run out in a mix-up by Mehran and by then it was 119/5. After that wickets were falling on a regular basis but even so the runs were piling up as well
In the end, a runout by Zeddy but more importantly, 3 very important wickets by Guy (2x caught at deep midwicket, 1x stumping by Amir) finished the 40 overs with a total of 213.
An achievable score but still 30-35 runs too many.

Bowling figures:
Guy: 7 - 49 - 4
Asif: 6 - 1 - 23 - 1
Zee: 9 - 42 -1
Ali: 9 - 53 - 1
Abid: 7 - 30

Nothing much changed in the batting lineup compared to last week's.
Zeddy opened the batting with Mehran and both looked very promising and both attacked the bad ball hard. The 50 on the board came in 11 overs which was fine.
A really good delivery cutting out got Mehran mixed up and his offstump was in the hands of the keeper. 61/1
Amir came in the same over, after facing two deliveries was given LBW. 62/2.
Saqib, back from an injury, came in at no. 4 and his job was to play his own game. He started off a bit shaky but soon middled every ball, regardless being runs or not.
With 87 on the board, for the third time this season, Zeddy scored his 50. Actually, we were a bit late in counting his runs but let's just stick to 87 runs on the board.
Too bad he couldn't convert that into a much higher score because he played a wide short ball on leg into the hands of backward square. 100/3.
The hundred came in 20 overs with plenty wickets left, we were on target. I didn't expect to see what happened next.
Ali came in and after facing one delivery, he top edged it to gully. 100/4.
Imran promoted up the order came in at no. 6 and together with Saqib, kept rotating the strike while maintaining the run rate.
One cross legged shot too many and Imran found himself hit in the middle of his pads. 117/5 after 25.
At no. 7 Asif was send in with a task to score at least 7 to 8 an over together with Saqib otherwise it would be very difficult in the end.
In order to maintain that runrate, Saqib charged their best spinner but missed the ball and got stumped. 139/6 after 30.
Still required 75 runs from 10 but with last 4 wickets in hand this was going to be an excited match. To keep it exciting, I got in at no.8.
A miss communication had Asif runout after he drove to cover. I didn't think we could have made it so I send him back but by then he was already halfway.
The keeper didn't make any mistake and took of the bails. 146/7.
Just two deliveries later Khurram got bowled by a ball that stayed very low but he also tried playing from his backfoot. The ball hit the inside edge onto the stumps. 147/9 after 32.
Ok, this didn't feel good at all anymore, 67 required from 8 overs with 1 wicket left. Guy came in and it was really mature of him to see that his job was to keep me on strike. Obviously, my job
was to keep on strike in order to win or at least have a shot of winning the game. I just played my game which is to hit the balls out of the ground. Most of the balls landed in the bushes and were found but their initial ball was hit quite far and never seen back again. This hitting made sure that after 35 overs, we were on 181 and now required 33 to win.
Some very mature rotating of the strike by Guy and helped by some wides, we needed 13 runs from the last 2 overs. Another six in the 39th over, didn't only brought us very close to our target but gave me my maiden half century as captain. In the last over, Guy was on strike, with 2 runs needed, he played a lovely shot behind gully scoring the winning runs.
What a match it was. The thrill of these kind of matches is what makes you love cricket and winning them makes you remember them.

Batting figures with strikerate:
Zeddy: 61 (89.7)
Abid: 51 (159.4)
Saqib: 23 (58.9)
Guy 12 (70.6)
Asif: 11 (100.0)
Mehran: 10 (35.7)
Imran: 7 (50.0)

Man of the Match: the captain

Ps. I might have sounded a bit too much annoyed by their umpiring, but that's only because I was. 

Abid Malik