After 2 rained out games, the Cricket Season of 2011 finally opened for Niagara Premiere Cricket Team last Sunday. The local city club travelled to play Cambridge CC Premiere at Cambridge. On an overcast day, damp outfield having higher than usual grass height, slow and very unpredictable cricket pitch, Niagara Cricket Club won the toss and elected to bat first ! A decision to bat first on a soft grassy and somewhat wet pitch came just as a surprise to the host team of Cambridge …as it was to few on the Niagara Cricket Club line ups. However, the decision made by captain Tan Qureshi relying on his long and strong Niagara Cricket Club batting line with strategic batting order plan turned out to be a correct one at the end of the day.
The opening paid of Zia Sarwar and Faizan Siddiqui of Niagara Cricket Club gave a flying start of 60 runs. The combination of left hand Zia Sarwar and right hand Faizan Siddiqui worked superbly for Niagara Cricket Club premiere team. After Zia getting caught on long on with his score of 27 well managed runs, Tawab Ikram, another left hand batsman joined Faizan Siddiqui. At that stage Niagara Cricket Club lost couple of quick wickets but Siddiqui maintained his focus and remained determined with his goal to stay and fight. He kept rotating strike with incoming batsmen to keep the score ticking for Niagara Cricket Club. Faizan’s remarkable inning of 47 was the back bone of Niagara Cricket Club batting line up followed by Nitin Sareen’s (16), Javed Main (26) and Zeeshan (29) also batted sensibly and added their well-played contributions to give Niagara Cricket Club a high total score of 191 runs i.e. on that not so easy to bat pitch and heavy outfield for the loss of 8 wickets by the end of the allotted 40 overs.
Cambridge opened their batting but Tawab Ikram swinging yorkers were a bit too much to handle. Tawab, bowling with great accuracy and one point was on a hat trick in his very first over …and again in his 2nd over. Loss of 4 top order batsman of Cambridge in first 5 overs, while the score was still under 30, broke the top order batting line up backbone and really any chances of Cambridge batsmen even reaching 100. However, in the middle order, Leslie Adams 23, Sohail Bahlyat 20 and Abu Paten 19 of Cambridge added valuable runs while few of the Niagara Cricket Club bowlers continued to struggle with their line and length – a challenge for some due to the very 1st game. Niagara Cricket Club bowlers gave away the highest number of wide deliveries in the recent history …totalling 26 ! Cambridge was all out for 112 when Niagara Cricket Club ended up winning the game with huge margin of 79 runs.
Niagara Cricket Club Premiere Team now plans to travel to Oakville this Sunday June 5th while the club’s B team lead by Nitin Sareen plays at Mississauaga.