ALFAS COLLECT MAXIMUM POINTS AGAINST VALENCIA

Sporting Alfas gained maximum points yesterday at the Woodbidge Oval at the expense of a rusty looking Valencia side.

Valencia, playing their first game of the season were put into bat by Alfas and they were soon struggling to cope with the bowling of openers Pennick and Laundon.

With both bowlers getting the ball to seam and swing both ways the batting side were soon in trouble losing a steady stream of wickets.Only Aktar had the composure to see off the new ball and he alone scored over half of his teams total bagging 65 before holing out to a fine catch on the boundary by Munoz off Taylor.

The second highest score for Valencia was Javed with 11, whilst all the other batsmen failed to make double figures.

Laundon, Pennick,Taylor and Pete Fell all shared the wickets in arguably their teams best bowling performance of the season.Valencia were finally out for 122 using only 31.4 of their 45 overs.

Alfas never looked like slipping up and Munoz and Pennick had surpassed the half century mark for Alfas well before the tenth over. Munoz was the first to go, being caught for Tahir off the bowling of Javed for 32. However, Crompton took up were Munpz left off and helped himself to 32 easy runs before getting out just two runs short of victory.

Naveed strode in to hit the winning four with Pennick unbeaten with 37 at the other end. The 8 wicket victory gave Alfas maximum points whilst Valencia secured a bowling and batting point to open their league points account for the season.

Valencia then headed to La Manga the next day to face Madrid United. With only nine men the Valencians lost by just 41 runs.

Madrid United batted first and scored 249 all out. A fine 53 by Imran was the highlight of the innings but there were also notable contributions from Asif (41) and Sajid (38) For Valencia Wasim had a fine spell with the ball, taking 4 for 26 off just 2 overs.

For Valencia an unbroken 7th wicket partnership between Jabbar (77 not out) and Ahsan (38 not out) nearly won the game for the visitors but they finally run out of overs 41 runs shy of victory.

Madrid United took 17 points from the game and Valencia 4 points, having had 4 points deducted for entering the game with just nine players.