Beneath the baking hot sun of an early summer Sunday in May, the Optimists took on theirtouring opponents, Bonn CC, in their second encounter of the weekend. TheTwenty20 fixture proved to be a much closer encounter than the 40 over game the day before and was enjoyed by all. Bonn CC batted first and got off to a bad start when their opener was bowled by an unplayable ball by Aanand Pandey. They then lost a few more quick wickets before managing to put together a couple of fruitful partnerships, involving Kawsas (44) and Nadeem (33), that helped themup to a score of 125. The Pandey father/son combo picked up two wickets each and a wicket each for James Barker and Sebastiaan van Gilst, making up the best of the bowling.
Chasing a scoreof 126 to win, Optimists lost Timothy Barker early but William Cope, coming in at 3, is made of strong stuff and, despite some good and challenging bowling,he stuck around until the end of the innings played some beautiful shots along the way. Throughout his innings he enjoyed good partnershps with Asif (19), Steve Clarke (31) and Aanand Pandey (18). Cope eventually finished with a man-of-the-match winning score of 44 n.o. to help OCC to their second victory of the weekend.
Tim Andrews