Several matches took place last weekend in the Costa Premier and Development leagues.
On Saturday the Sporting Alfas first XI travelled to La Manga to play Madrid in two 20/20 matches and claimed victory in both games. Reports and synopsis of both games are courtesy of Sporting Alfas chairman Kevin Laundon
Match One Sporting Alfas Cricket Club Sporting Alfas 1st X1 140 for 2 beat Madrid 20×20 139 for 6
SACC asked Madrid to set a score, Laundon and Pennick opened and Pennick struck with his second ball Fernandez caught by Fell, 1 for 8 off 2. Madrid then took 56 runs from the next 7 overs before Baker fell caught by Pennick off Fletcher, next over wicket keeper Brown held on to a sharpe chance and Healley followed his skipper back, Fletcher again the bowler.
Crompton claimed 3 from his 4 over´s as Couldren and Langhans missread his wrong one and were bowled then after Khan was missed by Fletcher he reached a 6 ball 22 but fell to Crompton caught by Taylor in the gully. A spell of tight bowling then restricted the Madrid team to 139 from 20. Spencer and Pennick found the Madrid bowlers had a plan and 50 did not come up until the 9th over.
A change of pace by Khan removed Pennick for 16 hard earned runs. Crompton(16) also found the bowling tight and unusually did not hit a boundary before knocking one back to Couldren. Fletcher(15) joined opener Spencer and the pair took the score past 139 to win the game with 1 ball to spare. Spencer batted through unbeaten on 73 a great innings.
Yet again SACC took all of the overs to complete a win, SACC 17 points Madrid 4 points
Match Two Sporting Alfas Cricket Club Sporting Alfas 1st X1 185 for 6 beat Madrid 20×20 119 for 8
The second game of the day and SACC´s turn to set a score, Crompton and Fletcher opened and the score rattled along at 9 an over until Crompton fell to Hakkem caught by Woodward, Nadeem joined Fletcher and enjoyed a 22 ball 58 run innings,Pennick fell foul of the umpire again, adjudged LBW. Fletcher fell for 46 Laundon came in and skied one caught by the keeper, Spencer and Brown took the score on to 185 claiming 5 batting points.
Chasing is always a nervy affair and Madrid lost wickets at a rate not suited to this short game 37 for two from 5, 77 for 5 from 15 and 119 for 8 at the end. Taylor and Fell bowled the middle overs and both returned excellent figures Fell 1 for 11 and Taylor 2 for 10.
Tyler Hogan Brown in his debut game bowled the last three from the far end gaining experience and a wicket, which would have been more if his team mates had held on to chances, Waqar also bowled superbly bowling 2 men and only conceding 6 runs from his 2 overs. 119 for 8 from the 20 overs. SACC 19 points Madrid 5 points
In the other game being played simultaneously La Manga outlasted Madrid United to claim two 20/20 victories as well. In the first game Madrid United won the toss and elected top bat. Their batting proved a little fragile and they mustered only 111 all out off 19.2. Aktar scored 24 and Shabbaz Ahmed 24 for Madrid whilst Farhat Mahmood was again in fine form taking 5-14 from his four overs.
La Manga knocked off the runs in 18.1 overs for the loss of six wickets. Mahmood comleted a great all round performance by contributing a quick fire 29 to the la Manga score. La Manga took 18 points from the game and Madrid United just 4 points.
In the return fixture La Manga batted first and scored a daunting 216 for 5 from their overs allocation. The main contributors to the La Manga score were Runjah (74) and Gopi Singh (45). For United Shabbaz Ahmed had fine figures of 2-48 off his 4 overs.
In reply, Madrid scored 171 for 8 off their 20 overs, a good score in itself but not enough to deprive La Manga of victory. Shabbaz Ahmed completed a great day for him personally with a swashbuckling 81, whilt for La Manga Sajid Ali was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4-39.
The final game on Saturday pitted Torreveija against the Intellectuals in a tense development league encounter. Torreveija batted first and were 140 for 6 at the tea interval. Intellectuals looked on course for victory with the help of a rapid fire 51 from Shan Ahmed,but the required support from other batsmen never materialised and the visitors were all out for 128 runs, 12 shy of victory. Torreveija took 17 points from the game whilst Intellectuals went back to Alicante with just 5 points to their points total.