MADRID II OUTLAST MADRID UNITED II TO POST WIN IN THE MADRID REGIONAL LEAGUE

Match report by Murari Perumalsamy, Madrid CC 2nd XI Vice-Captain.

Madrid CC seconds edge past city rivals Madrid United II by 2 wickets

Madrid CC second team registered a narrow win against Madrid United 2nd XI in a tightly contested game at Sonseca. Earlier Madrid CC seconds won the toss and invited Madrid United to bat first.

The innings was a story of two contrasting sessions – the first 13 overs dominated by Madrid United’s batsmen and the next 13 when Madrid CC’s bowlers pulled things back to restrict them.

Madrid United openers made a brisk start adding 30 runs in the first four overs before young pacer Waqas bowled Hammad for 9. But Tanveer carried on with his aggressive batting and put on a 50 run partnership with Shoib. With Tanveer finding run scoring easy and some ordinary fielding by Madrid CC, the teams took drinks with Madrid United at a strong 82 for 1 in 13 overs, looking well set for a big total.

Coming back from the drinks break Madrid CC needed to break the partnership quickly to have any chance and Valencio did exactly that by removing both Shoib (13) and the well set Tanveer (40) within a space of two overs to restrict the opponents to 91 for 3 in 16 overs. Raghav struck the very next over and Dinesh got a wicket of the very first ball of his spell and the batting side had slipped to 95 for 5 in 17 overs from a rather imposing 82 for 1.

Sensing an opening Madrid CC bowlers attacked and with some disciplined bowling managed to keep a check on Madrid United’s scoring rate with regular wickets. Dinesh went on to pick another wicket, Murari took 3 and Krishna came back to trap Ali Haider leg before to bowl Madrid United out for 156 in 26 overs. Mudassar who was the stand out performer for Madrid United counterattacked for a quick 35 not out. For Madrid CC every bowler who took the ball managed to chip in with a wicket and turned things around

Chasing 157 for a win Madrid CC’s openers Valencio and Joss started quietly as an impressive Mudassar (4 – 52 in 11 overs) and Shoib (3 – 39 in 9 overs) kept at the batsmen with some good pace and bounce. Joss succumbed to a brilliant diving catch by Ali Haidar who took on the dangerous Sonseca outfield and ended up with a few bruises and an important catch.

Valencio (15) , Rakesh (19), Vijay (19) and Angs (10) all got starts playing fluently and finding the boundary with regularity but they failed to carry on leaving Madrid CC at 95 for 5 in 17 overs – exactly in the same situation that Madrid United had found themselves in earlier in the day. However, the brisk pace set by the top order meant that there was hardly any run rate pressure on the rest of the batsmen and with 62 to get from 23 overs the pace set by the top order allowed Krishna (27) and Raghav (24) the time to play themselves in to put on a crucial partnership.

With less than 30 runs to get from 19 overs the only way Madrid United were going to win was by attacking and the Madrid United skipper brought back Mudassar who quickly removed the well set Raghav, Krishna and the ever improving Spanish cricketer Victor in the space of 3 overs and Madrid CC had slipped to 137 for 8. In the end some calm batting from Dinesh and Murari managed to make sure Madrid CC chased down the target without further alarms.

Madrid CC took 19 points from the game and Madrid United took 7 points.