FCC vs Primrose Hill CC U11 Lions

FCC won by 8 wickets

Never have an opinion about a game you haven’t seen, a book you haven’t read or a person you haven’t met (unless they’re a politician, a driver sat in the middle lane of the motorway doing 68mph or an Australian cricketer of course). This is a good rule to live by. So, your correspondent will refrain from any opinion regarding last Friday’s u11A match against Primrose Hill having been unable to attend due to a complicated child-related schedule and will here simply take the report from Rishi Tibarawela* - who was actually there!

Primrose Hill won the toss and started cautiously against high-quality fast bowling by Finchley skipper, Rishi Mehta. He had the batsman hopping and jumping with the bounce he extracted from the wicket to bowl his 2 overs for meagre 2 runs. Openers fought through the initial period to put on 17 when the first change in form of ever improving Matias Gura got a first breakthrough to bring Finchley into the game. Primrose opener Daivik Agarwal continued to rotate strike and aided by extras put on 42 for the second wicket before Rishi brought on his spin magicians , Aryan Bavishi and Elliott Kennedy. Aryan struck in his first over to break the partnership (aided by Rayaan Alibhai who took a wonderful catch) but the icing on the cake was applied by Elliott with a 3-wicket over which broke the back of the Primrose batting and saw them go from 57 for 1 to 60 for 5.

As if this was not enough for Elliott, he then goes on to take couple of catches - one of them a great one-handed screamer, both off the bowling of Ali Dawud who bowled an economical 3 overs to take 2 for 11. Fielding standards from Finchley were amazing throughput the game but were taken a notch higher when Rishi went diving full length in the air to grab a catch off the bowling of Sachin Tibarewala to have Primrose 8 down for 91. Aveer Nagpal took a caught and bowled to get the 9th wicket thereby ensuring a 100% catching record in the innings. Elliott then matched his captain’s brilliance by himself producing an run out to end the inning for 96 giving the Finchley boys a target of 97 to seal their 4th win of the league.

In reply Finchley openers Sachin and Nico Ponzoni Kirkham started steadily against some good quality pace bowling to give a good platform to the innings, putting on 29 for the first wicket before Sachin at 10 tried to take on the spinner in his first over and saw his stumps flattened. But this was not before he has done his job as opener alongside his partner Nico to weather the early storm and allow big hitters to follow to go after the bowling. So this brought Rishi to crease and as he has done whole season he got into the 5th gear straight away by scoring 3 boundaries and 1 six and in no time team was looking close at the target. Nico on the other end made his way through to 11 before getting out caught and bowled, bringing Elliott to the wicket. Primrose Hill - who had already had enough of Elliott when batting - were now in for more punishment from his hand. He smashed 4 boundaries in quick time to score 22 and take Finchley swiftly towards victory. Rishi at other end retired after scoring 26 asking Rayaan to give the final touches to the victory which he did beautifully by driving 2 boundaries and taking Finchley home.

So another win for the team by the small margin of 8 wickets. A stroll in the (Regents) park. And that rule about never having an opinion? I’ll break it this time – what a great and convincing win this seems to have been! And with another 20 points FCC currently sit proudly at the top of the table. Big game to come Monday against Hampstead though, could be season-defining. No pressure then…

*Thanks Rishi, great copy – if ever you need another job let me know, you’re a natural…