There aren’t many places in Europe where you can play a game of cricket in December. Last Sunday, on the first day of winter, the first game of the 40 over Liga Andaluza, got underway between Costa Del Sol and Granada. The Goval looked a treat, a little bit of morning dew and snow on the peaks of the Sierra Nevada made for a slightly chilly morning. Costa's Skipper Egan Dantis won the toss and with the new look batting line up, he backed his lads to put on a good score and chose to bat first.

Jaime Riley and Gurnam Singh opened up the batting, the left and right hander combo working well until some confusion in the 5th over saw both batsman at the same end, Singh did the honorable thing and sacrificed his wicket for the in-form Riley.

Akshay Rathore in at 3, looked sharp and played himself in, and with Riley hitting well the pair put on 70 odd in the next 10 overs. Jaime mistimed one in the 15th, Andy Applin holding on to a skyer off the bowling of Goswami, out 4 short of his half century.

This brought Nauman Abid to the crease and he did what he does best (hit the ball really hard) his quick cameo got the scoreboard ticking along nicely, hitting 17 off 9 balls before Goswani got his second, with another good catch from Southam in the covers.

The next 10 overs or so saw a batting master class from Rathore, hitting the ball to all parts of the ground with impeccable timing but he was running out of partners. Granada carried on attacking the new batsman and that seemed to be working; wickets were falling. Richie Cunningham came out in the 30th over and scuppered that plan, running well and holding up and end so that Rathore could continue his assault, smacking 13 4's and 8 '6 on his way to 136 not out.

CDS CC 264 for 7 off their 40 overs

Granada lost an early wicket, Jaime Riley hitting the stumps with a text book in swinging yorker to remove Southam. Sam Piper dug in, fended off the new ball and got Granada to the 10th over right on the required run rate but tight bowling from James Scott and a fantastic catch at mid-on from Kashif Kausar playing cricket for the first time, saw him back in the hutch for a well fought 20.

Captain Aakash was in no mood to hang around and went about destroying the economy rates of Costa’s bowling attack, Granada lost a few cheap wickets but Applin got stuck in and along with his Skipper put on a partnership of 70, keeping the Reds well and truly in the game.

The change of bowling saw Rathore pick up both their wicket in successive overs, with some great catching from Kumar, he went on to make light work of the tail picking up another 3 to complete the 5 for and earning him a well-deserved Man of the Match.

Granada all out for 166 off 27 overs 98 runs short of the target

Cricket is a funny game isn’t it? The score card in this game really doesn’t reflect how close the game was, it could have gone either way a few times. A great standard of cricket from both sides; a very competitive game and all done in the right spirit. A credit to the sport.

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