On a cloudy Sunday afternoon, WOCC 1st XI met up at the ground for their first match of the season. Birthday boy
Ed Packard was on it with a very mobile warm up session on the rugby pitch, so the preparation for the match was top notch. Skipper
Mohit Dixit won the toss and elected to bat first, trusting the process of last season.
Will Cope and
James Barker opened the batting and got WOCC off to a decent start until
Will Cope got out in the third over.
Joost Mees came and went quickly leaving
Ed Packard and
James Barker to rebuild with a 50 partnership off 7 overs and bringing us to 80-3-12. Ed's departure (19 of 21) brought
Taha Lodhi, to the crease and James started seeing the ball better, so runs kept flowing. James ended on 47 of 42 and Taha on 26 of 19. Some good running at the end made WOCC finish on 143-7-20, which felt like it might be just below a par score.
Mohit decided to open the bowling with Will and Ed to keep
Atif Kamalhungry for the middle overs and the plan worked like magic as the birthday boy got Anoop out in his first over, due to a good catch of Atif.
Heritage Cricket Club Luxembourg never seemed to be able to pick up the run rate and lost wickets at regular moments, including two identical wickets by Atif against both their left handers. Salil made a well composed 51 but could only manage to get his team to 106-8 off 20 overs. The bowling unit was excellent and all bowlers contributed to keeping the run rate down. 2 wides only for the innings. Special mention for the wicket takers, Atif (2-25-4)
Pankaj Malav (1-22-4) and Ed (1-19-3).
As proof that warming ups do work, 4 run outs in our fielding innings including a team hattrick on the last three balls of the match!
Well done all, next WOCC match is May 7th for WOCC 2nds!