Sporting Alfas Cricket Club Sporting Alfas 2nd X1 105 for 1 beat Torrevieja 104 all out
A weak Torre team travelled up to face Alfas in a top V bottom clash in League 2, Torre missing some of their more familiar faces and Alfas looking to get back to winning ways after last week’s loss.
Winning the toss, Torre’s captain elected to bat and Darwin himself strode out to open with L. Blann. Both openers saw through the 1st 10 overs with out loss, albeit with a few chances put down, Blann riding his luck a bit. Finally, with the score on 64, Blann (45) went for a big hit to bring up his 50 but only managed to hit it high up into the sun. Byrne called it while the bowler Waqar wanted it as well, a dangerous collision narrowly avoided as Byrne went over and Waqar went under, the ‘keeper holding onto the catch and Alfas had the breakthrough.
1 became 2 shortly after as Bash got Appleby (1) to pop one up into the waiting hands of Abdul and Torre were 67/2. That became 68/3 in the next over as Waqar continued his devestating spell by clean bowling Guichard (0) and then 2 runs and another over later he did the same to Rahul (0) 70/4.
Cailash Singh (4) joined the skipper at the crease but was not too attentive of his crease and was Waqar’s 4th victim, playing and missing but not getting back in allowing Byrne to stump him and Torre were 76/5.
The introduction of returning Leo Laundon saw the final demise of Darwin’s dogging innings on 11 off 22 overs. Looking to go over the top but only managing to find the hands of Marriner, taking the catch this time after a high loping ball went down earlier on in the game. 84/6
Marriner himself then came on to bowl and got young Wood (2) to pick out Ahmad at silly point 85/7, Perman at the other end saw McDowell (1) walk past the ball and Byrne took the stumps, 85/7.
A final flurry from the evergreen Harris saw Torre to the 100 run mark before he finally fell to Marriner, getting Harris (9) to pick out his spin partner Perman at cover to finish off the innings, Torre 1 man short and ending on 104 off 28.5, Ashraf making the major inroads with 4/4 off 5 overs.
Alfas went straight out for 8 overs before Tea which they negotiated without loss, Maini and Wood opening well with the new ball but unable to prevent Alfas going at 5 an over for the first 5 overs, wides helping as they did in the 1st innings.
After tea, Evans and Perman resumed and edged closer to the total without having too many scares. Perman went to his 50 before falling to Darwin on 54, trying to end the game with one big 6 and the partnership was broken on 99. However, Abdul and Evans saw the team home and máximum 20 points for Alfas while Torre came away with 2 but great experience for the younger players who will form a strong team in a few years.
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