Royal Brussels hosted the Optimists on a day which forecasted consisted rain and some thunderstorms along the way. With the inclusion of three debutants, Captain Ben Embleton led the Optimists after having won the toss and choosing to field first. The weather however provided no hindrance as Aanand Pandey and William Cope got their team off to an excellent start dismissing the opponent's aggressive top order cheaply. They ultimately ended up with figures of 6.4-3-35 and 6-2-1...3 respectively. New wicket keeper Ananth Srishilapathy also assisted the bowling brilliantly conceding only 1 bye and taking a neat catch behind the wicket.
The middle-lower order was then strangled and starved of runs courtesy of Tamil Mani and Arvind Pandey who both bowled long spells in tandem and conceded only 54 runs in 17 overs. Tamil picked up 3 wickets whereas Arvind got 1. Royal Brussels were finally dismissed for 143 off 34.4 overs.
The total was chased relatively easily with a slight scare where two wickets were lost in quick succession and the score went from 70 for 1 to 70 for 3. However, there were no further scares as the Optimists cruised home in 26 overs with excellent batting from Ben Embleton (25) and James Barker (37). The top order also batted strongly with Tim Barker scoring 27 and Arun Krishnan who made 24.
All in all, the excellent summer weather was backed up by an excellent performance from perhaps the youngest Optimists team ever to compete. Also, a key lesson was learned; never trust the weather forecasters.
Match Report by Aanand Pandey