An excellent all-round performance by the Optimists meant that regular visitors Deutsche Welle CC were unable to register a second win in two days and left Luxembourg having won one and lost one. With confidence understandably high after victory the previous day, Deutsche Welle won the toss and chose to bat first against skipper Arvind Pandey’s experienced side in a 35-over match, played in a great spirit throughout.
Under blue skies and in perfect batting conditions, the Deutsche Welle opening pair began in aggressive fashion against the bowling of Mohit Dixit and Aanand Pandey. Some excellent and well-thought out bowling then kept the batsmen in check as the openers struggled against the line and pace of Dixit and the speed and bounce of Pandey. As the pressure built on the batsmen, it was Dixit who took the first wicket of the day with the score on 27. He claimed his second wicket 10 runs later and despite some lusty blows and good fortune from the batting side, Pandey, Tamil and Phillip Burleigh all contained the scoring, demonstrating the benefit of consistent line and length bowling.
At 57-3, Deutsche Welle looked in trouble but a quick-fire partnership of 35 between the dangerous Rittwick and Imtiaz checked the Optimists’ progress. The hosts were in need of a wicket and it was Tamil who broke the stand, opening the door for spinner Sameer Rege to take a wicket in his first over. If the Optimists thought they would now run through the remaining Deutsche Welle batsmen, they were to be disappointed, as a stand of 70 for the sixth wicket dampened the home side’s spirits. Saransh Kulshrestha, Stuart May and Pandey Senior were all tried in an attempt to break the threatening partnership and it was indeed the captain himself who did the trick, having Emerson caught spectacularly at slip by Murali Ravichandran.
With the tail now exposed, Tamil and Aanand Pandey were brought back into the attack, with Tamil’s straight bowling and Pandey’s high-bounce causing the Deutsche Welle batsmen continual problems and bringing a flurry of late wickets. A fine bowling performance was spearheaded by Dixit (3-20) and Tamil (3-27) with Saransh, Sameer and the captain sharing the other wickets in a score of 183 all out.
If the Optimists were to chase these runs successfully, they were going to need a brisk start and that was exactly what they got with opener Dixit blasting three boundaries in the very first over. He fell shortly afterwards but Arun Krishnan and Stuart May continued to score freely against some pacy but often short bowling. Krishnan went for a rapid 12 but this only brought Ananth Srisailapathy to the crease and the wicket-keeper-batsman played his usual attacking game straight from the off. A blaze of boundaries and good-running between the wickets from the May-Srisailapathy partnership looked to have seized the initiative for the Optimists but when May (22) and Srisailapathy (28) fell in quick succession, the game seemed to have swung back in favour of the visitors from Bonn.
The Optimists needed a strong, free-scoring partnership and that is what they got through the ever-elegant Saransh and the destructive hitting of Ravichandran. Both batsmen tucked into the Deutsche Welle bowling with relish, rebuilding the innings at first, before accelerating the scoring with a range of thrilling blows around the ground. Their excellent partnership of 75, sucked the life out of the Deutsche Welle attack and took the Optimists to within 20 runs of victory when Saransh fell to a good low catch at square leg. It was then left to Phillip Burleigh and the impressive Ravichandran (63*) to steer the Optimists to a four wicket win with eight overs remaining.