By S M Mansoor Abbasi

A beautiful day of cricket to sum up a brilliant team effort alongside a good display of batting and bowling. The game showcased good and consistent runs at one hand and a test match feel of close in field with good pace and swing bowling on the other hand. Risinghurst loss the toss and was put to bat looking at a darker pitch. Risinghurst openers Saurabh and Martin gave a steady start with Martin adding 22 and Saurabh’s contribution of 14 runs. Sandeep George and Lucky then contributed 52 and 39 respectively giving  Risinghurst a steadiness in the innings. The partnership was full of elegant drives and pulls from Sandeep and Lucky showing their class and form with some well-placed drives and shots. The next partnership was between Mr Dependable and Reliable Rakesh, who anchored yet another innings with free flowing stroke play on both sides of the wicket, not out at 80. Mansoor contributed 37 runs with a straight 6 as the highlight of his innings. Romeo, a centurion from the last game, was unlucky on a ball that stayed very low. Sam was not out and made sure Risinghurst posted a good challenging total. It was a good display of partnerships and team effort overall. Risinghurst posting this total made the oppositions shoulders go down with bleak chances of acquiring the total. The icing on the cake was a display of pacy swing bowling with the facility of having a net of fielders around the batsmen to give a feel and presence of test match cricket. Govind got his first scalp with a pacy in swinger which dipped and swung in and was too good for the batsman to negotiate. This was just the start for Govind to run through the batting line up who were unable to negotiate his quality of bowling. Govind’s spell of 14.1 overs with 11 maidens and 6 well deserved scalps. JT with another spell of spin bowling managed to get rid of an anchor batsman assisted by a flying catch from Martin. JT totalled 4 scalps making Risinghurst bag their first win in timed matches.