After an excellent semi-finals day, WOCC advanced to Sundays match by winning on run-rate against Star. Heritage progressed through to finals day on merit, by finishing top of the league, as a result of their fixture against Warriors being called of due to poor conditions. Both teams were full of confidence going into to the last fixture of the LCF, with Heritage having won 7 matches and WOCC hitting recent form.
Joost Mees lead the way for WOCC by winning the Toss and electing to bat first. Richard Grundy and Romil Prasad opened the batting for WOCC, and were quickly put under pressure by Heritage’s experienced opening bowlers, in the names of Yatin Bhamare and Ravi Ramanathan. The bowling attack made it hard with tight bowling for the opening pair to score many runs, having made only 28 runs in the first 8 overs, before losing both opening batsmen in Sohail’s ninth over. Soon after Pankaj Malav and Captain Joost Mees got in, the conditions started to dry up and runs were coming fast, with Joost finding the boundary on numerous occasions, supported by Pankaj who was cautiously rotating the strike. It was Chris Evans to finally breakup the partnership, by catching Pankaj of his own bowling bringing the score to 92 for 4 of 16. Leading the way as Captain, Joost retired on responsible 51 off 28. With Reinhardt Heyns and Atif Kamal at the crease, it was up to them to bring about a defendable total. Both batsmen instantly settled themselves at the crease, Reinhardt was hitting runs all around the field making a valiant 24 before being removed by Yatin. But it was Atif’s cameo with the bat that really boosted WOCC’s score by hitting a grand total of six sixes, hitting three sixes in a row to bring about his 50 off 22 balls. At the end of the innings Ananth Srisailapathy hit a quick 15 in the last overs, bringing WOCCs total to an impressive 199.
Praveen Kuruvalli and Ankit Parate were sent in to open the batting for Heritage. Some tight bowling, lead Prashanth Chandrasekhar to strike in the first over to remove Praveen LBW. At the other end, Mohit Dixit was bowling good lines to keep the batsmen from scoring any runs, but again it was Prashanth to strike again for a second time removing Anand Pandey, who popped a catch to Chris Fry at mid-on. In the fourth over, it was finally Mohit’s turn to take a wicket, as danger man Vikram miss hit the ball and was caught by Punkaj in the covers, bringing the score to 15 for 3 of 4. Tony Whiteman and Ankit Parate showed their maturity at the crease and looked to stabilise the innings for Heritage, hitting runs around Pierre Warner Cricket ground. Atif Kamal was introduced into the bowling attack and immediately proving his worth, getting Tony for 26 caught behind by wicket keeper Hendri Bruwer. WOCC’s bowling attack proved to be too much for the Heritage batsmen as wickets started to fall regularly, as Pankaj removed Sohail with a brilliant piece of fielding by Romil at gully. This meant that Heritage were 57 off 13 for 6. Ankit was still at the crease with Chris Evans trying to make something out of the Heritage innings, yet it was Pankaj and Reinhardt to clean up the tail, both removing two batsmen each, leaving Ankit on a well fought 31 not out, leaving Heritage’s score on 103 for 10 of 24.
WOCC ended up the Victors of the LCF, by showing a complete display of dominance with both bat and ball, winning by 96 runs.
Christopher Fry