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Played at Upminster Park
Report by Steve Hamilton

This was our penultimate fixture of the season and one that was against a strong Upminster side that battered us by 109 runs last season. What was going to be in store for us this time?

Amazingly, all the preliminaries ran smoothly. We won the toss and elected to bat on a decent wicket with a fast outfield. What’s more, we had arrived with a powerful batting force. I was quietly confident.

Our openers Farhad and Jakaria did not disappoint and got us off to the perfect start, putting on 81 for the first wicket after 13 overs. Farhad went on to reach his half century. But then we lost two more wickets quickly to the loopy slow arm bowling of the opposition captain D.Brown.

At the crease now were Azaz and Adnan who dominated the bowling attack and ran hard, making the most of the fast outfield and putting on 89 for the fourth wicket. Azaz scored 47, in line with his excellent batting this season and taking his average to 44. Adnan reached a well-deserved fifty to lift us to 221. With a couple of cameo innings from Asad and Jonathan we reached a very competitive tally of 255 from 40 overs.

Now it was time to defend our total. Our regular opening bowlers Syed and Umair bowled a very tight line, especially Umair who only went for 14 runs off his seven overs. He definitely deserved a couple of wickets. with two dropped catches and some unsuccessful appeals for leg before.

After 15 overs Upminster had reached 74 without losing a wicket and looked at ease on their home ground. But that was until the newly ultra-slim Azaz came on and took the wicket of opener D.Ccruz for 26. The batsman had swung hard and found a top edge that sent the ball up what seemed 100 metres into the sky. The ball now began to fall in my direction at square leg! Although the whole team was aware of my excellent catching record and had full confidence in my ability to take catches safely, I decided unselfishly to let our razor-sharp keeper run in to take a magnificent catch, breaking the opening stand and getting the vital breakthrough!

Our leading wicket-taker Asad then clean bowled Bottoms, leaving the game in the balance at 90 for 2 off 19 overs.

However, Upminster started once more to take the game away from us as the young Quest passed 50, looking well in control and setting himself up for big score. He was supported at the other end by White, taking their reply to 189 for just two wickets and with our total easily in sight.

That was until Syed, last year’s top wicket-taker, came back for his second spell. Syed tempted White to drive to ball towards cover, spurring Azaz to run in at a rate of knots from the deep to take a tremendously low and game-changing catch!

Adnan cleaned bowled Quest for 100 to put the final nail in the coffin and spark a collapse. The wickets started to tumble, with a run out and wickets taken by Asad and Jonathan.

Upminster's early solid batting crumbled and collapsed, sliding from a confident 189 for 2 wickets to just 232 for 7 by the close of their overs.

We had won by 23 runs against a very tough league outfit, getting revenge for our heavy defeat last season. Now it’s 1-1 and we have been invited back for a return fixture next season for the best of three!

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