SPORTING ALFAS I DOWN JAVEA

Saturday 16 June    Javea C.C. 160    Sporting Alfas 1 161-7

ALFAS PREVAIL IN TOUGH EXAMINATION

Sporting Alfas Cricket Club’s defense of its Cricket España League title was back on track after its first team reversed the result of the previous match against Javea C.C. and secured an important victory.

The game produced an enthralling afternoon’s cricket with, for much of the time, the ball holding sway over the bat in a low scoring encounter, the outcome of which was always in the balance.

In the absence of Climent, who sustained an injury during the previous week, the Alfas side was captained by Howe, who maintained his unenviable record of losing the toss and, as a consequence found his team having to field on a hot and humid afternoon.

The early bowling by Alfas was not too impressive, with the exception of Muñoz, whose five overs spell saw him dismiss both the Javea opening batsmen at a personal cost of sixteen runs. Stanfield and Azfal then set about restoring order, and both scored freely against the Alfas medium pace attack. The introduction of the spin bowlers W. Ul-Rehman, Taylor and Crompton, soon proved to be decisive and, after Azfal fell to a boundary catch off W. Ul-Rehman for a well made fifty-three and Stanfield (43) was lbw not playing a shot to Taylor, the remaining batsmen struggled to score runs. From the strong position of 120-2 in the twenty-first over, the Javea innings collapsed as eight wickets were lost for the addition of just forty runs. Alfas fielding and catching was a considerable improvement on that of recent weeks and contributed to restricting Javea to its modest total. The most successful bowler for Alfas was W. Ul-Rehman, who claimed 3-33, whilst Muñoz, Grindey and Taylor each claimed two wickets as Crompton, with his leg-spin, claimed 1-7 from his five overs.

Although only chasing a total of one hundred and sixty, the task was never going to be an easy one for Alfas against a team that had beaten it convincingly some two weeks earlier. After Afzal and Braithwaite had each claimed an early wicket to leave the score standing at 24-2, Sajid then held on to a sharp return catch to dismiss Grindey before Afzal claimed his second wicket which left Alfas in some trouble at 46-4. It was left to Howe, who received solid support from Pennick, to frustrate the Javea bowlers and, with patient batting eighty-three runs were added for the fifth wicket before the latter was dismissed. Howe, who had completed a workmanlike fifty, had taken his score to sixty-eight before he was dismissed by Sajid, with Alfas still needing nineteen runs for victory. Although Javea claimed a further wicket, the match ended with a three wicket win for the SACC1 team with four overs of the match remaining. For Javea, Afzal was the most impressive bowler claiming 2-16, whilst Sajid and C. Matthews also claimed two wickets.

Sporting Alfas 1 18 points    Javea C.C. 5 points