Zed's Diary
Follow our new A Team skipper through the trials and tribulations, heartache and pain, during his first season in charge

CUP SEMI-FINAL
GUJARKHAN 232-8 ACCRINGTON A 124 ALL OUT : June 29th

As per usual having lost the toss yet again the Gujarkhan captain Botham made the 'hard' decision of batting first on a firm batting wicket. By the end of their innings they had reached 231-8 off their 36 over allocation. This isn't as bad as it sounds as one side of the batting wicket had a 35 yard boundary, so there were runs to be had. Gujarkhan started batting on a very sound note as the opening pair notched up a 50 run opening stand. The first wicket only fell when I ran the captain out Botham who scored a useful 35. The pitch we played on was on 10 degree slope and guess what...Botham was trying to run a quick single uphill!!!! It was like watching someone running up the Titanic when it was vertical and heading for the bottom....there was only going to be one result. Once he went the top four batters and Nadeem Ashraf all got handy 20's and 30's. The top scorer was Shahid (39) followed by their in form batter Mazhar, he was his usual explosive self, lashing out at anything short and dispatching it to the boundary, scoring at more than a run a ball 34. He was dropped twice, once on 8 (dolly) and then on 19. Just before the match got totally out of our control I bought Immy back into the attack and he duly delivered taking four quick wickets at the death and in the process twice being on a hatrick. Final score 231-8.

Our reply began soundly and by the end of the thirteenth over we were well placed at 71-2 with Immy (11) and Berny (16) the only batsmen out. It was at this stage I was hoping that our middle order (supposedly our strength) would fire and at the very least make a game of the contest. This was not to be, as Ian Johnson (0) went in at 4 and was very quickly walking back to the dressing room as he edged behind a well bowled outswinger. He was quickly followed behind by Arif who made an attacking 28 and D Hargreaves was extremely unfortunate to receive a ball that almost pea-rolled onto his pads and had to go for 0. The game as a contest was all over at this stage as we reached 110-5 off 22 overs. I decided to enjoy myself and hit out. Having got to 24, Botham (I know it can get confusing because of the almost inseparable parallels but please don't make the error of confusing the Gujarkhan captain for the Sky sports pundit and great all rounder) decided in his wisdom to bowl my Nemesis Azhar 'MUNDI-LAL' Khan. I unwisely lost my cool and deciding to charge the 'great paceman' and ended up holing out to mid on. The innings quickly precipitated to124 all out. Mazhar lead the bowling honours for Gujarkhan taking 3-17 off 7 economical overs

Disappointment,frustration,agitation,weak willed, outclassed....and no I'm not describing Immy's sex life but the teams batting performance in the second half of our innings . we were well below par here and thoroughly deserved to loose. Again being an optimist and looking on the positive we were beaten by the current league leaders who are so far undefeated in the season. Furthermore given the physical size of the pitch we did quite well restricting the opposition to this score. Never mind we're out the cup.

Don't miss the other installments
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 7
Part 8