Chilly Weather Makes X-Cricketers go Cold Turkey!
It was a windy day on December 6th 2015, signaling the beginning of the winter. DLSW X-Cricketers have had a few weeks away from cricket with a number of Training Sessions being cancelled because of rain and some sessions cancelled because of insufficient participants. However the team was still confident of doing well in the match even though they were playing the runners up team from last season.
If ever one wants to understand how a single team can dominate a match then one needs to look no further than this match. Mid Levels United showed why they are considered the most consistent team in the league. They taught the X-cricketers that if you want to win more matches you need to work a lot harder.
The team assembled at the Po Kwong Village Reservoir an hour before the start of the game, the toss was going to be crucial as it had rained the day before. The Team performed its warm up and at the time of the toss, Captain Vishal Mahtani continued his bad luck with the toss and called wrongly and the Midlevels decided to make X-Cricketers field first.
The X-Cricketers opening bowler arrived late because of a Doctor’s appointment, the team decided to open with their spinner, and the Player of the Year from last season, Nitesh Sancheti. The first few overs went well, however as the bowlers struggled with the wind, which cause them difficulity in maintaining their lines, the Mid Levels batsman started to get into their rythem. X-Cricketers managed to get opening batsman, Derek Ratwani, out early with a good ball bowled by Shezad, however the other batsman soon found their grove and scored 107/1 at the end of15 overs. After the mid innings break the DLSW X-Cricketers bowled a lot better, but as the Mid Levels had wickets in hand they were able to go after the bowling. The short boundaries at PKVR Reservoir made the runs come easy for Mid-Levels as they scored 240 runs in their 30 overs. X-Cricketers managed to pick up 7 wickets in the game, with M Shezad pickup up 2 for 36 in his 6 overs.
The rest of X-Cricketer's bowlers showed signs of good cricketing performance, along with Shezad, Tathagata Sarkar bowled to a good length, Vikas Kakkar also bowled a few good balls. Fielding was decent with Manpreet causing a run out and a good reflex stumping by Wicket Keeper Parvesh Fabiani. Unfortunately same cannot be said about the batting and apart from Tathagata Sarkar who was not out on 21, and Rahul Choithramani who hit a few good shots before being caught at the boundary) the rest of the team crumbled.
DLSW X-Cricketers lost the match by 185 runs, but have resolved to work harder and do better in the upcoming matches.
Junior Cricket
In Junior U11 Cricket the DLSW Lions lost to HKCC Pumas by scoring 169 against their 201. The U11 DLSW Littles teams continued their winning record by beating HKCC Rebels by 59 runs, this is the 6th win in a row for DLSW Littles, and they remain undefeated in the league. DLSW Kangaroos lost a close game to HKCC Rhinos by 15 run. All the games were played at PKVR Reservoir on Saturday 5th December.
The wet weather caused both U13 League games, which were to be played in the morning of 6th December, to be called off. DLSW Tigers drew with PACC while DLSW Cheetahs drew with USRC Premier. The afternoon game at KGV went ahead and DLSW Lions batted first and scored 82 runs in their innings against Sky Warriors, Faisan top scored with 16 runs opening the innings. Faisan also stared with the ball and he claimed 4 wickets for 16 runs while Kaif took 3 wickets for 16 runs as Sky Warriors were dismissed for 60 runs. The DLSW U13 Lions won by 22 runs.
Next Weekend
There is another weekend of rest for both Sunday League Teams DLSW JKN and DLSW Knights as well as the Women’s Team DLSW Wasps. In the Saturday League DLSW Spartans take on CCC Hung See at Police Training School on 12th December 2015 while the DLW Sarjan team gets the weekend off.
Next weekend is also the last round for the U11 League, the DLSW Kangaroos play HKCC Rebels while DLSW Cheetahs take on the USRC Jaguars on 12th December at PKVR Reservoir. The only U13 Team to take the field will be DLSW Littles against United Hawks at KGV on 13th December. And finally the U17 DLSW Tigers will play the HKCC Nomads at Hong Kong Cricket Club on the morning of 12th December 2015
