ANZA breaks Singapore Record in Singapura Twenty20

What a weekend of cricket in the 20/20 competition. Thanks to those who participated and in the process got a valuable hit out before the League season starts. Here's the run down on the 4 games played over the weekend.

Saturday's match against Marina 1, Captain Jacquier won the toss and batted. Hawker and pinch hitter Steve Whitton opened the batting and got off to a flyer with Hawker turning the strike over brilliantly with quick singles and Steve, inspired by his black-cap mates, slapped a lightning 54 with some huge sixes over mid wicket. Hawker retired on 19 after the humidity & furious running took its toll on him with a bit of blurred vision, luckily Julia was around if he needed the kiss of life. Dave Jacquier held the innings together with about 40, I say about, because the less than capable tournament scorers managed to give half his runs to other batsmen. Total for the 20 was 157, on a wet Turf City with the rope back, a pretty good score. Then it rained,and rained,and rained. Ended up the ground was unplayable so the match was decided by a toss of the coin. Marina skipper picked right, Dave didn't, we lost. I could share the next few words uttered by Dave but then this email would not get through your company firewall.

Sundays match against Universal (who the hell are they?) was played at Ceylon Sports Club (CSC), Jacquier won the toss again and batted. The result was 292/3 of 20. Thats not a typo, yes 292!! For perspective, the highest ever international 20/20 score is 221 by Australia against England back on 9th Jan. For the record Rajesh Sanal hit 44 of 23 balls faced; Corbon Loughnan 83 of 38, Todd Burgess 63 of 31; Phil Davies 71 off 24 (no). What a sensation!! They then rolled the Universal boys for 109 with debutant Paul Turpin (Turps) getting 2/16; Adam Seabright signaled his arrival for season 2007 with an impressive 4/15 in 4 of overs. Another debutant was Adrian Baker who took the catch to win the match (don't worry Adrian at number 6 in ANZACC its very rare that all 5 batsman before you actually score runs, you'll get a bat next time).

Mondays match against MUCC at CSC, Hawker won the toss and batted. Anything compared to Sunday was going to pale by comparison, and it did. Got 14 overs in before the rain came down. Andrew Spain (Spainy) got 23, Sid Jain top scored with 34 of 22 and Josh Ghosh set new standards for style appearing in what appeared to be a condom pulled over his head so his helmet wouldn't mess up his hair. In a rain reduced farce, it was reduced to a 7 overs per side match, the parabola calc meant they need about 53 runs. We had them at 3/24 at the beginning of the 4th and were half a chance. well apparently not - a dropped catch, a couple of sixes and the match was lost. Only marginally better than losing by the toss of a coin. Another debutant, Tim Wade, made an impressive start didn't get to bat, nor bowl, ball didn't come to him in the field except returning to the bowler (one touch), had 7 beers, spilled half a glass, charged him $10. Bigger performances to come no doubt.

Tuesday against Wanderers at CSC, Ragavan Thuraisingham (Raga) made a brilliant start with the club with 50 opening the innings, Rajesh backed up after Sundays great effort with a half century too. New guys Craig Alderson and Dhrov Soota also made good contributions with the bat, in all we posted another impressive total, 210/6 from 20. We then rolled the Wanderers for 140 with the Mike (I need a massage) Gal taking 2 wickets, Rajesh 2, Alderson & Dhruv one each, Phil McNicholas kept wickets for the first time for the club.

Overall a fantastic weekend of cricket marred by some rain which frankly resulted in us getting the raw prawn in both matches affected. Such is life. Great to see the new guys out there, some great talent that will slot nicely into the gaps left in the League teams from players who have left Singapore from last season and create some selection pressure.

Did we make the finals? Apparently we are a chance based on run rate but the organizers were still crunching their numbers when I last spoke to Garry, who did a great job organizing all the teams. No doubt he will let us know if we make it, some good performances would make the selection for finals team a bit of fun.

Next Sunday is an interclub match at Turf City B, make sure you reply to Dave's swebbs invite and get some valuable practice out in the middle before League starts.

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Cheers, Greg