ADAMSTOWN 4: 109-7 (20 Overs)
Batting: Vignesh 28 Swapn Joshi 23 Razwan Ahmed 30
Bowling: N. Case 2/13 K. Threadgold 2/21
HALVERSTOWN 1: 94 all out (19.2 Overs)
Batting: P Rosa 52
Bowling: Swapn Josh 3/20 Jaganathan 2/10 Vinay 2/14
This was a competitive game in which we bowled and fielded very well but found the batting difficult against some good bowling. Congratulations to Adamstown on their new ground - it should mature into a really good one. It is the first time in all my years that we were treated to heated changing rooms and this was most welcome on a dry but cold April day.
We won the toss and bowled first. Paolo had prepared for the game by driving around the local housing developments for what seemed like three and a half hours, searching for the ground. On his motorbike. This meant that Barry Elshove took the gloves despite feeling very under the weather and what a deputy to have - his keeping was a factor in our good performance in the field. Neville, Vishnu, Kevin T. and myself all bowled very tidily. The four of us had similar figures with Adamstown scoring just 73-6 from our 16 overs. We got their big hitters out just as they were starting to cut loose which helped a lot. Vishnu took yet another fine catch to add to his collection of great ones over the years and at the break I think we were quite satisfied to have held them to 109-7.
While we made decent progress, our innings was curtailed by their bowling and 8 of our dismissals were either bowled or lbw. The international-sized boundaries meant we were quite a long way from the action so it wasn't entirely clear if this was due to quality bowling or some rustiness with the bat. Paolo - following his extensive pre-match preparation - cut loose as only he can. He hammered a well-made 52 and on our own ground with smaller boundaries it could easily have been 70 or so. Unfortunately no one else made it to double figures, to leave us 15 runs short of the target.
The match was played in a very good spirit and I think we are going to give most teams a really good game of it this year. I don't foresee us folding too easily and when batting and bowling click at the same time, we can be confident of some good results.
All going to plan, I will hand the captaincy back to Chris Hamilton for the remaining T20 matches this season.
Written by John Threadgold.