Rain, drizzle fog and cricket- July 10th in the Cricket Newfoundland and Labrador summer league. It says a great deal about the passion for cricket in the organization that the teams even contemplated play this Sunday. The wind was from the east, bringing single digit temperatures, fog and drizzle, but the Avengers had done a good job on field preparation and both teams were there ready to play.
The match was reduced to 18 overs due to a delayed start, and the Stallions batted first after the Avengers won the toss. Saad Jahangir and Humman Bin Saad put together an excellent opening partnership of 40 against some very accurate bowling, rotating the strike well. Saad was bowled trying to accelerate, then some excellent fielding turned the match in favour of the Avengers. Firstly an accurate throw from Sachin Vashishtha ran out Rakesh Negi, then Kangai threw himself in front of a hard hit cover drive from Hummam stopping the ball with his chest, and catching the rebound.
That was the first of three wickets for Saravana Kumar, well supported by three wickets from Rahul Vashisht, as 40 for no wicket became 77 all out.
Fahad Ijaz took advantage of some loose bowling to get the Avengers off to a quick start, hitting two sixes over deep square. After Fahad was out leg before, Gurman Khurana hit his first ball for four, and the Avengers had hit as many boundaries in three overs as the Stallions had managed in 18. Gurman and Rahul continued to punish the loose ball, and with an unbroken partnership of 63 took the Avengers to a 9 wicket win inside 10 overs
Saravana Kumar was named man of the match.
Scorecard.
However the weather became too much for the second match, and play was abandoned due to a wet pitch.
