Optimists Cricket Club

WOCC 1sts v Warriors 1sts 5 May 2024

 
The perma-rain in Lux paused briefly providing a small window for WOCC 1sts to secure a win in their first outing of the season.
 
Put into bat, the Warriors’ openers started well against WOCC’s new opening attack of Milad and Sareer. The lads looked a bit rusty and will likely admit that they bowled too many extras in their first overs of the season. This put WOCC on the back foot as we were already four minutes behind the clock in terms of bowling our overs in time (at least a five run penalty this year), and Asgar and Jiggy had a developed a decent opening partnership in the power play. Enter Atif, demoted from his usual opening slot, and ready to let his bowling do the talking. He picked up both openers in a spell of 4-0-22-2 without any extras. The skipper plugged away from the other end without much luck but helped to build pressure. Fed up with not getting a bowl, Pankaj just started to run people out. He executed three runs outs in an immaculate display of outfielding. Mohit showed his class in a spell of 2-16 in 3 overs and Pankaj cleaned up with 3-4 in only 1.3 overs, crucially bowling out Warriors before the five run penalty was applied in the 20th over. Big shout out to Oves who came on as 12th man after Reiny tried to assassinate Joost, and then took a great catch. The Warriors total of 119 looked about par in soggy conditions, helped along by 18 wides and a no ball. 
 
Wounded warrior Joost was sent up the order to open with Will in a move that did not pay off. Ben and Will threatened a partnership but when Will perished we collapsed from 27-2 to 45-6. This became 54-8 as Atif and Izhar came and went quickly. This would be the end for most teams but WOCC bat deep and Mohit and Milad began to build a match winning partnership, gathering runs in ones and twos, with some sensible and technically correct cricket. Mohit drove the ball beautifully and Milad showed great patience and maturity as the two of them brought WOCC within a sniff of victory. When the lively Sasi finally induced an edge from Mohit, the pressure mounted on Sareer and Milad as we still needed 15 to win with only one wicket remaining. Nervous tension built on the sidelines but the lads were calm on the pitch, patiently picking off the runs to see us home in a game that we rarely looked like winning.
 
This was a comeback for the ages. Full credit to Mohit and Milad for their fine batting. Winning is definitely a habit so it was good to start with one, and we have time to work on a few lessons learned before our next game against Heritage on 25 May.