LSW Warriors v Gap Ramblers

Saturday January 20th at Po Kong Village Road 1.

 Toss won by Warriors

 With Warriors having only one point less than league toppers Crusaders, Warriors tenth match of the season was against the fourth from bottom Gap Ramblers. Would Warriors be able to maintain their undefeated league form?

Warriors had quite a few players in this match; Shabbir Ahmed, Jawad Ashraf, Maurice Ling  were all unavailable due to business commitments. As if that wasnot potentially bad enough, just prior to the commencement of the match Zain Abbas was suddenly struck with a  troublesome back pain.

Winning the toss Warriors elected to bat first with Moner Dar and Zain opening the innings. Moner was the first to make the walk back to the pavilion after scoring a quick 19. Excuse the pun but Zain was clearly in pain throughout his innings. He was out to an easy catch at short mid-wicket, trying to pull the ball he only succeeded in mis-timing his shot. After being dismissed on 14 he was unable to play any further part in the match.

 Realising that for this match Warriors were without several key batsmen Tabarak Dar, who came on following the dismissal of Moner, started his innings slowly but with a surety displaying his experience in the game. It didnot take long for Tabarak to dominate the Gap Ramblers bowling and by the end of the 20th over he already had 50 runs on the score board. Jawad Iqbal and Azar Illahi played supporting rols to Tabarak as he reached his first  of the season, indeed the first century by any LSW Warriors batsman this season.* In the last 5 overs Tabarak went ballistic as one club member observed, his final score was 138 runs which included 15 fours and 7 sixes. An excellent innings by any standard and the best batting achievement of the season for LSWCC.

 At the end of their allotted 35 overs Warriors had scored 204 runs and had a total of  260 for 6 wickets. Batting honours go, without saying, to Tabarak.

Giving away 56 extras Gap Ramblers bowling can only be described as sloppy. They might also consider making more use of Turner as a bowler. Off one over, despite being hit for 10 runs, he took 2 wickets including that of Tabarak.

Gap Ramblers started the run chase with a spirited display from both of their openers who seemed quite settled at the crease. Warriors captain, Azhar, decided to introduce ace bowler Moner Dar, to shake things up a bit. He soon had one of the openers removed and Warriors started to take control of the match. With both openers gone gap Ramblers started to crumble, their next three batsmen only managing 13 runs between them with Moner and Jawaid almost taking their wickets casually. Fortunately Gap Ramblers lower middle order was made of sterner stuff and managed to bat on for the whole of the 35 overs. Indeed at the end of their 35 overs Gap ramblers had managed to score 205 runs, one more than Warriors!

Whilst both the Gap Rambler openers did well; Collard on 47 and Tully on 48, perhaps their best performance was from number 8 Phipps who scored 39 runs not out. When the extras were added Gap ramblers had a total of 229 for 7 wickets.

Despite winning by 31 runs this match was no easy push-over for Warriors. Accepting that warriors had some key players missing the fielding was at times messy, five catches being dropped (particularly expensive to the bowling of Tabarak) and at least 40 runs being given away to mis-timed fielding. Unfortunately the replacements for the regular Warriors players were often at fault here.

Although he took 3 wickets off 10 overs for 59 runs, Jawaid Iqbals bowling was at times erratic. Moner was the most economical bowler taking 2 wickets off 10 overs for 42 runs and Tabarak also managing a couple of wickets.

A win is, of course, a win. However, had Gap Ramblers not been so profligate with their extras it could well have been a different result and story!

* Note the use of batsman here, best not to forget the achievements of the LSWCC Ladies team here.