After a devastating batting collapse in the last match against Gentt cc, Optimists reinforced their batting order with William. And what a reinforcement it was.
Under grey skies, optimists began their campaign against optimists old friends Liege cc. Since Liege was delayed in their arrival, optimists won the toss by default and decided to bat first. Optimists got off to a great start with Ady and Will comfortably seeing off the good balls and scoring off the bad ones until Ady underedged a ball onto the stumps in the 17th over for 17. Will was then joined by Girish, who was dismissed due to an unfortunate lbw in the 23rd over. James came in to replace Girish and stabilized one end, which allowed Will to express himself. And express he did. Will constantly put the opposition under pressure and dominated anything that was even slightly off the line or length. Will and James kept batting aggressively and added 123 runs, until Will got out on a mind blowing 151. Yeah, you saw that right, One-Hundred-Fifty-One runs. This brilliant inning can be quite easily described as one of the best batting innings seen on Pierre Werner Cricket Grounds. In the last 5 overs, wickets fell quickly, but in the end optimist seconds managed to put up the season's highest total of 273 with contributions from James 33, Anshuman 20, Oscar and Pankaj.
After a quick ten minute lunch break, the optimist bowlers warmed up and got ready to defend the total, and get all bonus points. Seconds began their bowling attack with Will and Raju. As expected, opposition sent in their big hitters to try and up the run rate right from the beginning, but did not manage to connect many, and lost wickets to Raju's excellent swing bowling. At the end of his 10 overs Raju managed a five-for, making sure the optimists get all the bonus points from this victory. Good contributions also came from Marcus, who took 3 for 35 off his 10 overs and Pankaj who got 2 for 24 off his 8. Mohit and Will were not so lucky with wickets, but anyways bowled with a lot of discipline.
In the end, it was a very convincing victory for the seconds, as they got all the bonus points and are among the top 2 teams in division 3.