CORDOBA GAIN POLE POSITION

Southern Spanish Cricket League

Cordoba CC v Malaga CC  30 May 2010.                                   Won by Cordoba CC by 180 Runs.

Cordoba CC won the toss and elected to Bat.

Cordoba CC 241 for 9, 19 points.                      Malaga CC 61 all out , 4 points.

How many people can you get into a sauna?  Well if it is called Cordoba, several unseen tens of thousands of residents who have the sense to stay in the shade and22 cricketers who haven’t .  Just as well then that all Cordoba CC’s home games have been played early in the season to avoid the real heat.  Cordoba won the toss and chose to bat.   Malaga skipper Asif Tarrer Mohammed sensibly rotated his bowlers while bowling a punishing seven over spell himself – a sterling effort indeed.  Excellent fielding backed up the bowling effort with four catches and two run outs.  With an overall run rate of just under seven an over this was a decent performance in the field from the visitors.  Cordoba opener Abid Mohammed was caught early on but it was to be the seventeenth over before the next wicket fell with the score on 103.   Shoaib Hussain pulled the second ball off Malik Ameer Awan to Amjad Ali waiting on the boundary at square leg.  Moving smartly to his left Amjad got his hands to the ball at full stretch and somehow managed to keep hold of it while falling leftwards and rolling over.  What a catch!  Just in case anyone missed it, on the fourth ball of the same over he did it again to remove Adil Raza for a well played 53, although he retained his footing this time.  Fifty runs were added before Waqas Ali, off his own bowling,  ran out Waqas Ahmed.  Just to show that two wickets in three balls was no fluke, Amjad Ali bowled Kashif Mehmood for 36 and two balls later trapped Tahir Mehmood LBW on the back foot.  Cordoba batted out their 35 overs for the loss of three more wickets to finish on 241 for 9, a good score though not a great one.  From here, either team could win.

No run outs for the Cordoba fielders but five catches were taken.  It was Tahir Mehmood who drew the short straw for Cordoba, bowling his seven overs straight off.  Unfortunately Malaga’s batting didn’t match up to their fielding performance, with only two batsmen reaching double figures.  Mustafa accounted for both Malaga openers, one caught and one bowled.  Not to be left out Tahir Mehmood removed Saleem Hussain in the tenth over then got Asif Tarrer Mohammed to glove a rising ball down the leg side for Riaz Ahmed Butt to take a smart catch behind in the twelfth.  Kazam Ali came to the wicket with the clear intent of blasting the ball all over the park but soon left with his stumps scattered by Tahir.  When Waqas Ali steered a rising ball to gully the best of the batting was gone although Baber Rashid waded in with ten runs from number ten in the order.

Candidates for man of the match are Adil Raza, 53 and one catch; Shoaib Hussain, 20 and three wickets; Amjad Ali, 1, three wickets and two catches  Usually, a special performance with bat or ball secures the nomination.  This time a combination of bowling and catching secures it for Amjad Ali with special mention for his square leg catches.

                                  P    W    T   NR    L   BP  Pts
Cordoba                      5    3    0    0    2   39   69
Malaga                        5    2    0    0    3   31   51
Combined Colleges       4    2    0    0    2   26   46