The 1st XI travelled to Wilrijk, the home ground of the Antwerp Indians, last Saturday to play a double header againist Antwerp Indians 1st XI and Ostend Exiles. Skipper Joost Mees lost the toss and we were sent in to bowl first on a lovely sunny day in Belgium.
The start of the match was typical T20 and saw chances for catches, a run out, as well as chanceless boundaries and a high amount of dot balls and resulted in a score of 37 for 2 after the mandatory powerplay. Charlie Ramsden bowled all his overs through for a very impressive 3 for 26 of 4, helpen by a very athletic catch of T. Barker at short third man. Wickets kept tumbling and unfortunately tough chances went down this time, resulting in a final score of 169 for 7. Aanand Pandey ended with respectable figures of 1 for 26 of 4, Arjun Nandal 0 for 26 of 4. All in all more than decent fielding and bowling performance on a rock hard but small outfield.
The batting innings started with Arjun opening with Timothy Barker, but was unfortunately shortlived as was the stay of skipper Joost Mee. Aanand Pandey and Timothy Barker pushed on and after Aanand got adjudged LBW half way down the track, it was up to two Timothys to keep up with the pace. Andrews provided a very valuable support act, unfotunately losing his left hamstring in the process and forced to hole out for a invaluable 23. Timothy Barker kept on hitting the bad balls for boundaries and making use of the sloppiness in the fielding of AICC, now with a perfect ally in Yassar Ali, who hit the winning runs after 19.4 overs. All final overs hectic made the team only realize after clapping of Timothy Barker that he ended on a monstrous 104 not out, making him only the second centurion in a T20 match in the history of the Optimists. Well done Timothy!!
A little euphoric, as the win meant qualification for the quarter finals this year, the skipper strode out casually looking for his first toss to win this year, but unfortunately will have to wait a while longer for success and the Optimists were sent in to field for the second time in the day. The mandatory powerplay this time was more skewed towards the batting party which ended on 46 of 3 of 6. Steady bowling kept on bringing wickets and when the Exiles finally started to hit out, good catches by Aanamnd Pandey, Taral Desai and Joost Mees kept the run rate down and Exiles ended their innings after 19 overs. Outstanding bowling figures of Phil Burleigh, who showed it is possible to score and play on the same day as he ended with 3-25 of 3, Arjun 1-18-3, Aanand Pandey 1-19-3 and Taral 1-20-3. Exiles all out for 160.
Due to niggles, a long day and the fact that qualification was already accomplished the batting order was shuffled a bit, bar the opening combo of Arjun and Timothy Barker, altough unfortunaly Timothy could not repeat his feat of earlier in the day and departed early for 2. Arjun and Aanand Pandey rebuild the innings, including a monster 6 of Arjun but both suffered a run out on successive balls, with the Optimists fearing for one of their famous collapses. Desai and Charlie Ramsden followed in quick succession two overs later, bowled by skipper Daud. Anand Pattabiraman and Joost came together to make a new start in the chase and both receive a life of a very generous point fielder, who dropped the simplest of chances. When Anand departed for 8, after a valuable partnership of 51, cool finisher Yassar Ali strode to the crease and put on another 50 with Joost to hit once more the winning runs, this time after 18.2 overs. How often does it happen that one batsman hits the winning runs in both matches? Yassar ending not out with 17 and Joost with an unbeaten 57.
All in all a great, but very long, day where we have kept our unbeaten group record in T20 matches in Belgium. Quarterfinals are on the 17th of August against either RBCC or PCCB.
Joost