Glenmore Cricket Club News story


Match Report: Glenmore T20 vs Crown, July 27th

29 Jul 2013

Glenmore's batsmen were left kicking themselves on Saturday evening as a poor batting display cost them a vital win over Crown.
The two sides entered the match locked together on 24 points, with a place in the play-offs up for grabs. With both teams desperate for a win it was Crown who batted first on a pleasant summer's afternoon. Ruwan opened the bowling for Glenmore and was straight into his groove. His first over went for just three and every ball looked threatening. At the other end Hardeep was unable to contain in a similar fashion and went for 13 from his first six deliveries. The third over of the match brought the only maiden of the day and two wickets for the pacey, accurate Ruwan. Pasha took an excellent catch at slip to get rid of the dangerous Afridi, and with the final ball of the over Ruwan got Thejas in a muddle and the ball gently lobbed up to Nadeem at mid-wicket. Ruwan thoroughly deserved his wickets as he bowled superbly…fast, intimidating and on the money.
Glenmore were soon celebrating again as Hardeep finally got his man. Wasim had whacked Hardeep for a few boundaries but had no answer to a full, straight one which thudded into his pads.
Having picked up three early wickets Glenmore were looking good. But, the Crown middle order were determined to take the attack to the bowlers and build a strong total. Former league President Usman Khan led the charge with a blistering innings of 38. He batted with great style and confidence, regularly standing tall and smacking the ball to the long-off boundary. He was eventually out off Reinhardt's bowling thanks to an amazing catch by Sandy at deep-square leg. Sandy charged in, dived full length and picked up inches from the turf.
Muneeb, bating at 6, continued where Usman had left off though. He raced along to 25 with some enormous sixes before getting run out. He was a number of late wickets to tumble as Crown looked to accelerate. There were three run outs at the tail end of the innings and a stumping of Waseem's bowling. The 10th wicket fell at the end of the 20th over with the total on 142.
Glenmore's reply got off to a dreadful start as Alex was caught down the leg side for just a single. His departure brought together Nabeel and Ruwan, and this pair batted fantastically well. Both are naturally attacking batsmen and for a while it looked as though they might make light work of the challenging target. Ruwan clubbed some powerful boundaries, including a flat-batted wallop over mid-off's head. Nabeel continued his fine form, taking advantage of anything loose with an excellent array of shots, from delicate late cuts to big old swipes for six! 
Together they took the total to 69-1 from just 7 overs. But, twenty over games tend to change direction very quickly and it once again proved the case when both Ruwan and Nabeel fell within an over of each other. It was the spin duo of Ali and Afridi who did the trick for Crown. They bowled 8 overs in tandem and went for just 36 runs, picking up three wickets along the way. 
Well as Crown bowled it was the Glenmore batsmen who were mostly to blame. Just five runs an over were required from the last ten overs, but time after time batsmen came in looking to play big shots. Waseem Altaf was the only man to play the sensible, controlled innings the situation required. While he was content to flick, dab and nurdle the ball around for ones and twos, his partners came and went with an alarming regularity, most of them caught trying to hit over the top. In the end Waseem (27) was last man out, the scoreboard reading a disappointing 117.
Credit to the Crown bowlers for keeping things tight, but Glenmore will rue this as a missed opportunity.