Madrid Cricket Club - 14-04-2007 - Match Report

Club President's XI 115-5 (25 overs) bt Rashid's Rumblers 114 (24.3 overs) by 5 wickets.

The weekend's game between Madrid Cricket Club's President's XI and Rashid's Rumbler's was a run chasing thriller.

Rashid's Rumblers batted first and were soon reeling at 12-2 after some exciting bowling from the President's Andre Sivier and Zubin Cooper. Opener Jimmy Ashraf and number 4 Nadeem Alvi then shared a free-flowing partnership of 31 runs and looked set to bat out the innings before Nadeem was unlucky to be stumped out whilst under no pressure having batted carefully to 13 runs.

Jimmy Ashraf continued to score runs freely, but was rapidly running out of partners and was finally run out on 40 runs with the Rumbler's score on 105. The Rumblers continued to 114 all out, with 3 balls of the innings left, with Akmal impressing late on with the bat (11 runs) before being run out by keeper Tim Doust.

Pick of the President's bowlers were Andre Sivier (2 for 22 off 6 overs) and Jonathan Woodward (2 for 7 off 2 overs). Debutant Tim Doust was very tidy and alert behind the stumps.

In reply, President's struggled early on against some very accurate bowling from Nadeem Alvi and captain Rashid Masih, losing opener David Bull to an unfortunate run out caught in no-man's land after being dropped off a very easy catch.

Zubin Cooper and Stewart Lunn then progressed at a steady if slightly slow rate against some very accurate Rambler's bowling sharing a second wicket stand of 37, before Stewart Lunn tried to open up against spinner Mohammed Akmal and caught a leading edge and was caught out on 16 runs.

Zubin Cooper then accelerated the Presidents run chase in a quick-fire 44 run partnership with Andre Sivier (who was out caught trying for the boundary on 11 runs) before hitting the winning runs on the final ball of the day with President's 5 wickets down. Man of the match Zubin finished on an impressive 61 runs not out.

Pick of the Rumbler's bowlers were captain Rashid (2 for 24 off 5 overs), Abid Mahmood (1 for 14 off 5 overs) and spinner Mohammed Akmal (1 for 21 off 5 overs).

Stewart Lunn