Starting a match at 13:30 instead of a the usual 11:00 is something we are not used of. Lately, we tend to finish the first inning at around 14:00 when fielding first.  Now with the Worldcup football going on, our intentions remained the same: field first, get them out cheaply, score the runs, have a drink, head back home, watch football. Started off with Zahid Shahjee the Great, playing his first match for ACC4, and myself. Pressure from both ends resulted into quick wickets. By the end of the 10th over, 18 runs on the board and 5 wickets were down, Shahjee 2, I got 3. Batsmen 6&7 had a different approach and just went for the occasional slog and before Bat 7 fell, exceptional delivery by Guy and caught by Sanjay, they had gathered 46 runs in 20 overs.

46 soon became 77 before their topscorer Bat 6 fell, bowled by Teja caught by Guy.
Bat 9 didn't last long, he couldn't defend his offstump and went back to the pavilion with having faced only one delivery by me. Just before the 100 mark, Guy got Bat 10 out, playing it straight into the hands of Amir the Keeper. Bat 8, lefthander, still in the game and not giving away his wicket, crossed the 100 and brought the team total to a 105. Another bowling change worked, an offbreak bowled by newby Absar Riaz, played in the air, safely into the hands of Amir. Target partially achieved: all out for 105 within the 40 overs.

At lunch we were not pretty confident about the run chase. 105 isn't a big score and keeping that in mind, Zeddy & Sanjay gave us the solid start we required with quick singles, occasional boundaries etc. Unfortunately, Sanjay played one sweep shot too many and got his stumps rooted. By then already 29 runs were on the board in 6 overs. Amir, still sore from a last weeks delivery into his ribs and keeping for 38 overs, came in on 3 and together with Zeddy put up a score of 42. Their openingsbowler (legspinner) bowled with good accuracy and bowled out Amir on a delivery cutting sharp in. Last weeks 40 runs scorer Saqib got promoted and just as he started middling the ball, a short delivery bowled, ending somewhere near his ankles. Saqib did his best dugging it out but the ball rolled under his bad, hit the stumps and a few seconds later, one bail fell. 46 runs on the board in 20 overs, still nothing to worry about because we had good batting left.

Absar came in nervous, tried to slog a ball too cooldown his nerves, got bowled, went back to the pavilion, and I guess that didn't help cooling down. No worries, it happens to everyone. The runs and the wickets increased at the same time so needed a change: I promoted myself up the order (even though I scored not many last week). Zeddy still in, saw batsmen come and go, had a simple suggestion: his job was to place the ball, mine was to smack it around. It worked, we had put up a score of 83 in the 27th over. We felt victory in our reach. A bowling change shattered the thought the Malik's could finish it off: Zeddy played a slow flighted delivery right into the hands of short midwicket (a 13 year old kid standing with excellent reflexes). Teja came in, probably didn't expect a same kind of ball and got bowled. Now it was on our most experienced Shahjee to turn the tide and score the winning runs. That is what we were thinking. He came in and after being welcomed by all the R&W players (very popular) produced a huge backlift and before the ball even was bowled, visualized smacking it for six.

The actual situation was slightly different, everything went fine except hitting the ball and getting the offstump uprooted. Still 87 runs on the board with plenty of overs to play. The only worry was their spot on bowling and our batsmen coming in, warmed up a bit and went back in the pavilion eating up all the limited edition crisps. Khurram started cautious and did a fine job seeing off their spinner and getting me on strike. Their quicker bowler, who had scalped Zeddy and Shahjee, came into the attack. Obviously, he wanted to finish it off, I know I would. He greeted me with 3 short/bouncy deliveries. I greeted him back with consecutive boundaries on each one of them, a nice welcome 12 runs. After a few wides, we now only required 2 more runs and due to a misfield (direct hit missing the stumps) and no back up, we ran 3 runs just to make sure. Won the match, but what a challenging and exciting match it was. In the end, excellent bowling by Shahjee by bowling his 10 overs consistenly and consecutively.
And ofcourse, a cool and impressive batting display by Zeddy for staying in there and kept the scoreboard going.


Just a few stats:

Bowling:
Abid : 10-1-23-4
Zahid Shahjee: 10-3-20-2
Guy: 7-1-22-2
Absar: 1.3-0-2-1

Batting:
Zeddy: 39
Abid: 32*
Sanjay: 14