Delay

I've got extremely busy this week, so i will do the updates on this weekend. I'm already late with a week, sorry about that:)

Results from week 6: 5 games, 4 wins.

This was yet another successful week, with 3 new players arrived, plus a huge surprise victory. But let's go through the matches, one by one:

Twenty20 3.3: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs. Mogambo Cricket Club[Cloudy/Flat]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 6 wickets.

8,000 spectators had the chance to enjoy this high scoring match. Last season the Dragons got two close victories against Mogambo. They have pulled out a decent batting performance this night, scoring 190-10. All rounder Collie Bernard and young wrist spinner Ramaprasad was in good shape, in terms of wicket taking: they took 4 respectively. I wasn't too optimistic after that, but the guys did wonders with the bat: Holtbacher stood strong as he rushed into a 111 runs performance. Rasmajinan didn't stop below 50 either. The winning ball came at 18.4, 196-4 the final score.

Man of the Match: Lucas Holtbacher

Youth 2.2: Kobras vs. Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club[Sunny/Uneven]:  Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 142 runs.

This was an easy game, as expected. The home team couldn't resist the young Dragons, the opening partnership had 110 runs. Shankar scored 42, Usama Ali 110, Androo 82 and Murray did 69. 307-4. Their batting wasn't on top either, as they all gone by 34.4. No one to select from the bowlers, they all did great.

Man of the match: Pediya Androo

USA Youth Pull League: Hunkz vs. Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club[Sunny/Dry]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 135 runs.

Another great result, against a fairly weeker squad. The club made one more step to win the title in the youth pull competition. Ijaz excelled with the bat, while all the bowlers did a good job.

Man of the Match: Pediya Androo

One Day 3.1: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs. Mujahedine CC [Windy/Slow]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 2 wickets.

The game of the week, without doubt. We have played 4 games with Mujahedine last season, and we got beaten easily. Now this was the time for payback. They batted first, Dhawan and Hampson did an enormous job to keep the score low. Mujahedine was all out by 45.5, score 211-10. I felt like this is a good chance for the team to win this game. And the batters lived up to the expectations: We lost some wickets easily, but van Onselen managed to score 52, Deetman also did a nice 39 from only 23 balls. Abolhassan did the most probably, stayed on the pitch until the last over, his Strike Rate was only 55.41, but he drove the team home. The score  was 215-8. The curse against Mujahedine seems to be over.

Man of the Match: Aidan Cunningham from Mujahedine, van Onselen came 2nd.
 

Results from week 5: victory in all fronts

Past week was simply amazing for the club, we managed to win all our matches. Let's see them in order:

Twenty20 3.3: Karachi Dolphins vs. Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club[Humid/Sticky]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 9 wickets.

  It was Karachi with the bat first, and failed miserably. They have finished 78-10, thank to our excellent spin performance. The bangladeshi spinner duo, Haider & Dhawan took 3 wickets respectively, while Bernard and Veldt took the remaining 4. It wasn't a hard task for our young squad (which included some non-regular players too) to hunt it down, the final score was 79-1, in just 11.5 overs.
  Well, this was expected, Karachi is controlled by a bot now. Our bowlers had a great performance, hopefully they can keep up their form for the rest of the season.

Youth 2.2:  Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs. Woodchester XI[Sunny/Flat]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 5 wickets.

 This proved to just as hard as expected. Woodchester is one of our main rivals for the title, they have won all 4 of their previous games. Yet, it wasn't enough to beat the Dragons :)
  This night was all about Chandrasena: the young all-rounder had the best game of his career, first he achieved a 5 wicket haul, then scored 73 runs from just 64 balls. He was the game winner for sure. The best performer for Woodchester's was the Gilmore/Oliver duo, they have scored over 100 runs combined.
 This was a very important game, probably the most important of the season so far. With this win, we are still very much among the contestants for the title.

USA YP: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs. New York Yankees[Humid/Uneven]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 7 wickets.

 An easy victory in the USA youth league. Again, Chandrasena proved to be the Man of the Match by taking 3 wickets. U.Ali/A.Shankar also did well.
  Nothing much to talk about this friendly league so far. Ever since we have beaten Baggygreens, we haven't faced any strong teams, and we sitting on the top 4 points clear.

One Day 3.1: Boo Kroo vs. Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club[Sunny/Dry]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 6 wickets..

 Last season, we suffered two heavy defeats from the Kroo. The opponent was high on fatigue, also Mujjie played some inexperienced players to leave some rest for his star players. This was our best chance to beat Boo Kroo, and the team managed to came on top. Again, our spinners was the key: Haider, Mazin and Dhawan all had a very low run rate, along with 6 wickets. We managed to get them all out by 42.2, Boo Kroo finished with 180-10. Our batting wasn't perfect, but they guys just did well enough to reach 182-4, from a comfortable 37.1 overs. Well done lads, this win can be very precious in the struggle to avoid relegation. Andries van Onselens did the most with the bat, scoring 77 runs.
  This victory have put us in a comfortable situation now. The team's goal is still to avoid relegation, and at this moment we are sitting at the 3rd position, with a comfortable distance from the danger zone. From now on, if we manage to beat our rivals, we can easily stay up.

One Day Friendly: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs. Lahore Knights[Cloudy/Hard]: Lahore Knights won by 1 wicket.

Our usual training opponent, Lahore Knights visited us last Sunday. We had a decent innings, team got to the nice 342-4. A. van Onselen, L.Holtbacher, I. Abolhassan and S.Rasmajinan all batted very well, getting close to 100. Yet, this night was Lahore's: They had a big struggle with our young bowler line up, they were losing wickets while P.Taylor rushed to a 129 runs performance. They have managed to win the game from the last ball, congrats Ahsan:)


  That was for last week, better than expected. Hardest match on this week is against Mujahedine CC, i don't think we have much chance to beat them, but we will see. Some players departed the squad last week as well, we said goodbye to Hodgetts, van der Bilt, Hawks and Samar Ali.

Our top performers this week was Dhawan and Haider from the senior team, and Chandrasena from the youth team.

Match Report 07 Aug 11: Blaster Batmo vs. Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club [One Day Friendly]

The team travelled to Scotland on this Windy day. This was the debut match for our new finger spinner, Nikhil Dhawan. The groundsmen prepared a slow pitch, and the Dragons started their innings. The two openers this time, Lucas Holtbacher and Andries van Onselen did a decent job, they went to an amazing 161 runs partnership. Later it turned out to be the key for the team, as all of our other batsmen got out early: the 3rd best effort came from wicketkeeper Rasmajinan, who finished the game with 28 runs. All out came at 47.1, Crni Zmajevi finished with a decent 257-10. I had some doubts if we can defend the score, especially when the opening partnership of Batmo's rushed a century. They were above the RRR for long, until our banlgadeshi spinning pair came on the pitch: Haider & Dhawan took 6 wickets combined, with low ER. Collie Bernard took the remaining 2 wickets with ease. Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 66 runs.

 The game turned out to be easier, the guys had a decent performance tonite, especially with the ball. Openers performed as they should every single game, and we grabbed a nice victory over a respected opponent. Dhawan seems to be a bright star for the future, they looked absolutely lethal with Haider. 

Results from Last week + Team news

We had a quite hectic and unlucky week, let's see the results:

Twenty20 3.3: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs Beiram's 11[Cloudy/Flat]: Beiram's 11 won by 5 wickets.

Beiram's won this game on the last ball. Batsmen did a good job, Holtbacher, Rasmajinan and A.Abolhassan scored over 50. Bowler's was underperforming, especially 2 of our best: Farrell and Mazin finished with awful economy rate.

Youth 2.2.: NEW PAK 11 vs. Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club[Windy/Flat]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 31 runs.

This game actually proved to be harder than I expected. NEW PAKs did a great job, and managed to marginalize their loss. Androo still performing amazingly, picked up the Man of the Match, scored 108 runs from 88 balls, and finished with an 51-1 bowling figure. Never worse.


USA Youth Pull League: Longhorns XI vs Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club[Cloudy/Dry]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 143 runs.

A quite easy win for the Dragons. I thought it's going to be closer, but the lads proved me wrong:) Chandrasena had a great game, both with bat and ball: first he scored 41 runs from 33 balls, then took 3 wickets with an amazing 1.75 ER. Well done, Chandrasini! Androo excelled with the ball this time, taking 3 wicket, while Ijaz contributed with 67 runs.


One Day 3.1: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs. KHAN Warriors [Cloudy/Flat]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 57 runs.

What a nice game from the Dragons. The Warriors came heavily fatigued, but still they counted as favorites. The key man this time was the younger Abolhassan, Ismail. He contributed with 123 runs, not out, and catapulted the team to a 299-5 innings. The young fast bowler Amalean was also excellent (picking up the MotM award as well): 4 wickets taken, 3.80 Econ.


Summary: Not a bad week, i have to say. It started with an unlucky loss, but the team recovered later, and finished with 3-1. One Day membership seems secure for now, while our youths are in a good position for promotion. The t20 loss could be painful, considering how close the match was, and how close the division itself is.

Update

I don't have too much time for the blog lately, so for this week I'm only gonna do one detailed summary post. Stay tuned :)

Match Report 29 Jul 11: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs. Lahore Kings 11 [one day 3.1]

We were looking forward to this game, the Kings had beaten us twice in the past season, so it was payback time. They looked out of form as well, so everything was set for a successful game for us. Conditions were Dry/Overcast, spinner friendly. Rasmajinan and Holtbacher opened for us, and Holtbacher lost his wicket early in the 7th over. Abolhassan came in, and they've done a wonderful 158 runs partnership with Rasmajinan, both got close to a century. The two player departed in the 36th and 37th over, after that we lost all our remaining wickets so quickly, Rogers departed last at 49.4. Despite that, we had a comfortable 276-10, for the conditions this looked very promising. Bowlers was in form too, Farell took 2 early wickets, and Haider provided his usual magic in the late overs. Rogers sealed the deal at 42.6: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 70 runs.
Excellent victory:) The Kings rested a lot of players though, they got hit by fatigue very badly. All in all, this was an excellet match for the Dragons, Rasmajinan & Abolhassan did wonders with the bat, and all our bowlers performed quite well. I've played 2 wrist spinners again, and it turned out well [again].

Match Report 27 Juli 11: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs Al Khobar Falcons (youth 2.2)

Another exciting match. Al Khobar is one of our rivals in the title race, so a victory here was crucial. Also the structure of the two squad is pretty much the opposite of each other, Al Khobar have very good bowlers, while our team is stronger in batting and fielding. We started our innings and Shankar departed early, then Usama Ali and Pediya Androo scored nicely. Ali lost his wicket in the 15th over, but this night was all about Androo's batting performance. He scored a century, while were lucky enough to score decently in all his partnerships. We finished with 281-5. Looked good enough for the win, but the Falcons batsmen was in good form too. Their run rate increased over by over, and our bowler's were struggling. Luckily we managed to keep our lead, and Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 27 runs.

Best performances:

1, Pediya Androo wasn't too confident with the ball, but he batted a lot better and ended up scoring 113 runs from 97 balls.
2. Hala Karim did well for Al Khobar, scoring 73 runs from 65 balls.
3. Usman Ali also proved to be useful for the Falcons: 60 runs from 56 balls is indeed great.

Match Report 26 Juli 11: Team Furry vs Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club (t20 div 3.3)

This was a long awaited game between the Furries and the Dragons. We have a long history of matches, and in the last few games we had scores were pretty close, maybe even in a bit of favor of Team Furry. He also beaten YOUNG GUNNERZ in the previous round, whom devastated us in the 1st round. Conditions were Flat/Windy, and we started our innings. After 5 overs score was 50-0, Ahmed Abolhassan started strong with 30 runs. Unlucky to us, he lost his wicket on the next ball. Holtbacher also departed at 9.6, and then something magical happened with the van Onselen/Rasmajinan partnership, they stayed in all the way, scoring 129 runs combined. 230-2, I felt that's should be enough, yet Team Furry started their innings very strong too, they were at 58-1 after 5 overs. I started to be worried a bit :) Brassington batted very strongly for them, and Amalean only managed to take his wicket at 10.4. They kept on scoring greatly, their run rate was above ours till the 12th over. Then came Haider with his magic tricks, putting up a 2 runs, 2 wickets over. Brilliant. Rogers got one more in the next, Haider again in the 15th. It wasn't hard from there, Haider and Farrell managed to take the remaining 3 wickets by 19.2. Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 53 runs.

Best performers of the match:

1. Sunil Rasmajinan with 91 runs from 47 balls. The Crni Zmajevi keeper also had 3 catches.
2. Imrul Haider with 4 wickets and 4 ER. Another spectacular performance from Haider. He was the hero:)
3. Andries van Onselen 60 runs from 26 balls. In partnership with Rasmajinan, he wasn't any worse.

Man of the match for Team Furry: Livingston Brassington. The experienced batsman picked up 61 runs from just 26 balls.

Quick Catch-up

I had no time for updates in the last week, so now a quick catch up: We won with ease our t20 & youth games, and suffered a heavy loss in One Day. Also lost in 2nd round of Pavilion Cup.

League Round Up Week One

Twenty20 3.3:

YOUNG GUNNERZ vs Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club [Windy/Hard, 8715 spectators]: YOUNG GUNNERZ won by 7 wickets.

 An easy victory for the GUNNERZ. Key players were Decard Caine (68 runs, 37 balls) and the trio of Rimmington, Parkinson and Hill (3 wickets each) for YOUNG GUNNERZ. Crni Zmajevi's best performers were Collie Bernard (27 runs, 16 balls) and Pediya Aamir (2 wickets).

Karachi Dolphins vs Beiram's 11 [Windy/Sticky, 4420 spectators]: Beiram's 11 won by 8 wickets.

 Beiram's achieved an easy victory over the Dolphins. Key performers were Harrity (57 runs,35 balls), spinners Jones and Yusuf took 3 wickets each, with a very low ER.

Team Furry vs Mogambo Cricket Club [Windy/Flat, 6780 spectators]: Team Furry won by 8 runs.

 Match of the day. Team Furry successfully defended their 218 runs. Key men was Kamal (52 runs, 30 balls), Towers (88 runs, 49 balls) and Wallace (54 runs, 27 balls) for Team Furry. Yalamanchil (100 runs,56 balls) and Morgan (48 runs, 26 balls) did excellent for Mogambo's. Bowler's didn't have a chance this time.

Swing Kings CC vs Aviemore [Windy/Green, 7800 spectators]: Swing Kings CC won by 257 runs

The Kings scored a brilliant 273 runs to demolish Aviemore. Butterworth did 159 runs from only 66 balls, clearly he was the star of the round. Fraites also added a century (110 runs, 53 balls). No one to mention from Aviemore, sadly.

Best batting performances:

 1. William Butterworth: 156 runs from 66 balls [Swing Kings CC]
 2. Berkeley Fraites: 110 runs from 53 balls [Swing Kings CC]
 3. Amoghadarsin Yalamanchili: 100 runs from 56 balls [Mogambo Cricket Club]

Best bowling performances:

 1. Dino Bitwott: 4 wickets taken with 2.00 ER [Swing Kings CC]
 2. Suresh Yusuf: 3 wickets taken with 2.57 ER [Beiram's 11]
 3. Keith Parkinson: 3 wickets taken with 1.5 ER [YOUNG GUNNERZ]

Keeper of the day: Eliah Jackson made 2 catches, a runout and 1 stumping. [Team Furry]

 Youth 2.2:

Goldy's Eagles vs Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club [Windy/Crumbling, 5652 spectators]: Goldy's Eagles won by 4 wickets.

 Match of the day. A very exciting game of the two title contenders. Goldy's Eagles won the game with its excellent batting in the late overs. Best performers were for Goldy's: Mahoob (51 runs, 67 balls) and the late partnership of Sohail (32 runs, 39 balls) and F. Ali (38 runs, 32 balls). For the Dragons, Shankar (60 runs, 99 balls) Androo (59 runs, 65 balls) and Decker (40 runs, 44 balls) did the most.

Woodchester XI vs North Star [Windy/Slow, 4830 spectators]: Woodchester XI won by 147 runs. 

 Woodchester XI destroyed the North Stars with a stunning victory. Title contenders Woodchester's did not give a chance for the opposition, openers Annetts and Gilmore scored 138 runs combined. Fast bowler Francis took no less than 4 wickets, and Annetts took another 3. Best performer for the North Star was Nazir with his 44 runs.

Kobras vs NEW PAK 11 [Windy/Uneven, 5617 spectators]: Kobras won by 3 wickets.

  Another close and exciting game. Kobras managed to win the game at 39.2. Performers of the day were Khan and Hussein for NEW PAK 11, Hussein excelled both at ball and bat. Korbas' Jan scored 91 runs, wk Schaefer joined him with 94 runs, while Lewis hit no less than 44 runs.

The Sjiekke Bennies vs Al Khobar Falcons [Windy/Uneven, 6100 spectators]: Al Khobar Falcons won by 9 wickets 

 The Bennies failed to stop the excellent Falcons, as the title contender rushed to victory. Anwar took 4 important wickets, while Aamer and Umar's partnership did 113 runs for the Falcons.

Best batting performances:

 1. Kamran Khan: 116 runs from just 89 balls [NEW PAK 11]
 2. Gerhardus Schaefer: 94 runs from 83 balls [Kobras]
 3. Qaisar Jan: 91 runs from 91 balls [Kobras]

Best bowling performances:

 1. Austin Francis: 4 wickets with 4.12 ER [Woodchester XI]
 2. Naved Anwar: 4 wickets with 2.38 ER [Al Khobar Falcons]
 3. Leonard Annetts: 3 wickets with 1.86 ER [Woodchester XI]

Keeper of the day: Ansar Kamal [North Star] and Sardar Ahsan [Goldy's Eagles] both with 3 keeper catches.

One Day 3.1


Boo Kroo - Mujahedine CC [Windy/Dry, 10890 spectators] Mujahidine CC won by 32 runs.

 Two very evenly matched teams fought today, Mujahedine's bowling proved to be the key on this day. Their top batters were Zahid (95 runs, 115 balls) and Biemans (61 runs, 74 balls) while Boo Kroo's Millar answered with 77. Rasheed and Kanetkar were close to a half-century as well. Dickson and McFarlanne took 6 wickets together, which sealed the deal for Mujahedine.

Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs Surray [Windy/Dry, 6830 spectators]: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 6 runs.

 The surprise of the day. Surray outrated Crni Zmajevi in most aspects of the game, and they still suffered a 6 runs loss. Rasmajinan collected 53 runs for the Dragons, Hodge fought back with 69 runs. There was some awesome bowling this time too, Adcock from Surray took 4 wickets, while Haider (3 wickets) and Rogers (4 wickets) lead Crni Zmajevi to victory.

 KHAN WARRIORS vs Ujpest Devils [Windy/Flat, 7200 spectators]: Ujpest Devils won by 3 wickets.

A very high scoring game, where Ujpest's experience proved to be key factor. KHAN WARRIOR's put on a decent batting, and yet, Ujpest managed to overcome that. Rock and Wa Menza both scored a century for KHAN's. Shridar did 120 for Ujpest. All his other batsmen scored nicely and evenly. We saw a stunning bowling performance too, this time from the away side: Moyes took a terrific 7 wickets.

Farmers Union Iced Coffee CC vs Lahore Kings 11 [Windy/Dry. 10845 spectators]: Farmers Union Iced Coffee CC won by 87 runs.

Freshly demoted Farmers Union proved to be too tough for the Kings this time. Openers Lillie and Oliver rushed to a 191 runs partnership, while from the Kings only Fitzgerald batted good enough. Daniel also took 4 wickets for the Farmers.

Best  batting performances:

 1. Berihun Wa Menza: 139 runs from 93 balls [KHAN WARRIORS]
 2. Ronald Oliver: 135 runs from 140 balls [Farmers Union Iced Coffee CC]
 3. John Rock: 124 runs from 71 balls [KHAN WARRIORS]

Best bowling performances:

 1. Elwyn Moyes: 7 wickets with 8.32 ER [Ujpest Devils]
 2. Pediya Daniel: 4 wickets with 4.25 ER [Farmers Union Iced Coffee CC]
 3. Ralph Rogers: 4 wickets with 3.6 ER [Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club]

Keeper of the day: Dirk Butterworth with 4 keeper catches.

Match Report 17 Jul 11: Pretoria Parrots vs Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club [Pavilion Cup Round One]

5000 supporters came to see Pretoria's battle against Crni Zmajevi. The groundsmen prepared a flat pitch, while the weather was nice and sunny on this afternoon. Samar Ali called correctly, and the Dragons started their innings. Despite the conditions favored the batsmen, Anwar lost his wicket early, the umpire called lbw at 0.3. Another batsman departed, as Harden made a catch, Salih was quickly off pitch. What happened after that, wasn't exactly pleasing for the home side.Lostwalleti and van der Bilt's partnership quickly hit the 150 runs mark, and the score was 176/2 by the break. Crni Zmajevi continued where they left off, the 2 made 264 runs combined, as Indrasiri finally managed to take van der Bilt's wicket at 37.4. Wickets started to fall a lot quicker at this point, Lostwalleti departed at 39.4, Hodgetts followed quickly at 40.6. Next one out was Javed, then Samar Ali, who were the only one with a decent batting figure from the late order. Rebbeck took his 5th wicket at 49.5, Crni Zmajevi's innings finished with 383/8. A quite good score even on this pitch, i must add. As Pretoria started their innings, Amalean started his show. The openers were out by 2.3, and Zia took another wicket at 3.3, Amalean added 2 more, after the 10th over Pretoria was at 53/5. Amalean continued to bowl amazingly, and finished the game with a marvelous 6 wickets. Lostwalleti added the next 2, the Parrot's batting line up was up for a real test, which they failed to pass. Haider finished them off with an excellent spin at 33.6.Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club won by 239 runs.

Playing mostly their substitutes, Crni Zmajevi's manager expected a harder game. There was some quality batting from Lostwalleti and van der Bilt, the latter got 3 keeper catches too. On the bowling side, Lostwalleti excelled again, along with the man of the match, Amalean. From the Pretoria side we can't point out too many great performers this time. Rebbeck put on an excellent bowling display, and Indrasiri had some great moments too.
 

Match Report 15 Jul 11: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs Surray [One Day Div 3.1]

 First match of our one day season, and already gone crazy. Surray visited us, conditions were dry/windy. We've played with 4 spinners, and 1 medium pacer. We called the toss correctly, and our innings was on its way, the lads didn't started as well as i have hoped for, the scoreboard showed 24/2 after the 5th over. It wasn't a good sign, Adcock departed our 2 best batter, Ahmad Abolhassan and Holtbacher. The partnership of Rasmajinan and van Onselen lasted longer, the latter lost his wicket at 18.4, Lydamore bowled and finished the over with a wicket maiden. Nothing interesting happened, at half time we were at 94/3, not too good, i must admit. Rasmajinan left the pitch too at 28.4, Anwar followed him not long after by a great ball from Adcock again, at 30.6. Things didn't look too good for the home side.... and continued to be worse, Ismail Abolhassan bowled out by Lydamore at 33.3, and by this all of our decent batsmen were out. Farrell and Mazin did a decent partnership after though, Mazin got out at 38.2 ( Adcock again), Farrell followed him at 41.5 Score was 181/8 at this time, not good, not good at all. Ramparasad failed to score on a slow ball as van der Graaf bowled him out. By the end of over 44 we were down to only 1 wicket, managed to score a miserable 189.. Come on lads! Our last partnership last night was Haider and Rogers, a couple seemed incapable to bat, yet they have put up a solid 27 runs. At the end, we managed to finish with 214/9. That did not look bad at all.

 Farrell and Ramparasad started to bowl, and Surray's batters was on rampage. Scoreboad showed 36/0 by the 5th, and 82/1 by the 10th run. Seemed like we will have serious problems, Ramparasad bowled awfully at this period. Things didn't get much better, however Rogers managed to bowl out Buckstein at 13.4, and he was bowling when Rasmajinan finally stumped Hodge at 19.4. Finally Surray slowed down a bit, still they have looked comfortable at the break with a neat 137/3. They needed 81 runs from 26 overs. After the break our 2 most experienced bowler came, and they made sure Verdi will get some more grey hairs. Surray's Hill started to hit boundaries from almost every ball, until Farrell finally caught him at 28.2. Surray still looked comfortable to win, Haider gave a bit of hope to the home side in the 34th over, when he took 2 wickets at 33.5 and 33.6. Rogers started to bowl strongly, with low ER and 2 wickets in the 37th over. Match could still go to either side, Surray was at 196/8, needed only 19 runs from 13 overs. Ramparasad corrected some of his earlier mistakes by bowling out Adcock at 40.1, and Haider put up a tricky ball when Rasmajinan managed to stump Lydamore at 41.4. What a game! Crni Zmajevi won by 6 runs.

 I can only hope for games like that, these moments what makes cricket the best sport in the world. There was at least 4 turning points in this game, when Adcock took those early wickets, when Haider/Rogers batted greatly, when the openers of Surray humiliated the home side's bowlers. But at the end, Rogers and Haider saved the day for the locals. Both team deserved to win, Crni Zmajevi got the upper hand with luck, and thanks to its excellend spin attack in the late overs.

 Players of the game for the home side are Rogers and Haider without doubt. They had an excellent partnership and managed the home side to survive till the end of their innings. Then they did an excellent job in the bowling department, the two combined took 7 wickets of the opposition. Can't really point out anyone else from the home squad, Rasmajinan did some decent keeping and managed to score 53 runs.

 For the visitors,  Hodge had an awesome stroll of runs, 69 runs out of 70 balls is admirable with this conditions. There was some great bowling display too, Adcock and van der Graaf had 7 wickets combined.

Latest aquisitions & departures

As expected, Edward Dulling, Dogo Uouko and Pediya Aamir left our team, generating a nice $127,000. They wasn't in our long term plans, although Aamir's departure can be a loss for the team in short term. 2 players joined the club today, Ismail Abolhassan will definitely strengthen our batting line up. Manager Verdi hopes to use him especially in t20 games, in the lower/middle order. The UAE player is 21 year old, having accomplished technique and batting. I'd say he is a good purchase for the future. The other aquistion is Danny Steyn, a south african 16 year old player. It's yet to be seen how he can be used, he has poor batting and bowling.

Manager Verdi confirmed that there might be one or two youth players added to the squad, while senior team seems to be complete.

Match Report 13 Juli 11: Goldy's Eagles vs Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club (Youth League 2.2)

Our youth team has started the season as well, with an unlucky defeat at the hands of Goldy's Eagles. Goldy's Eagles won by 4 wickets. We started with batting, and Usama Ali lost his wicket by 0.2. Our batters performed well after that, reaching 105/1 by the 20th over break. Guys were confident, Androo departed only i n the 21st over. Our innings ended with 216/6, which seemed to be good enough on a Crumbling pitch. Goldy's Eagles reached 97/2 by the break, game looked still manageable for our team.Chandrasena and Kumble took 2 more wickets early, by the 25th over they were at 126/4. Kumble bowled very well, after the 30th over they still needed 60 runs from 10 overs. Things continued awfully from there though, Goldy's scored a lot of boundaries, and in the last over they needed only one run to win the game, which they just did.

This was a very even contest, both teams played well, Goldy's got lucky and their batters performed just a little bit better, while our bowlers failed to take enough wickets. This is an unfortunate lost for our team, hopefully they can step up and win the upcoming match against North Star. For the individual performances, i can say we can be satisfied with the batting, Shankar and Androo both scored a half century, while Decker got to 40 runs from 44 balls. On the bowling side situation is worse than expected, Androo being our best with 4.00 ER and 2 taken wickets. Kumble bowled well in his first spell, but failed miserably in the second.
I'm a bit surprised by the performance in overall, i expected our bowlers to be better, and our batsmen to perform worse. Well, that's cricket:)

Match Report: 12 juli 11:YOUNG GUNNERZ vs Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club [T20 Div 3.3]

Season finally started with a hard game against YG.Conditions were Windy/Hard, not a good combination for our team. Amalean called tails correctly and we started our innings. First few overs was going well, even though we lost van Onselen early.From the 6th over though we started to lose wickets fast, and all were out by 18th over (129/10). YOUNG GUNNERZ batting was amazing, they scored quickly and won the game by the 12th over. YOUNG GUNNERZ won by 7 wickets (130/3). Match rating shows that they were superior in every aspect of the game. Cain had an awesome performance on their side (68 runs from 37 balls), along with bowler Parkinson (3 wickets taken in just 2 overs, with an excellent 1.50 ER). Our side had no notable performance this time: Best performer was Collie Bernard who finished with 27 runs from 16 balls.New singing Isaiah Farrell had an awful game by having 17.00 ER in 2 overs. We expect a lot more from him. Can't really say much about this game, the better side won, easily.

Pre-match analysis[t20]: YOUNG GUNNERZ vs Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club

 Tomorrow the season finally begins with an exciting twenty20 match against the division favorite YOUNG GUNNERZ. The game starts at 5:00 ftp time, conditions expected to be windy/hard. Both teams are expected to be in the upper part of the league table. A win for Crni Zmajevi would surely boost their confidence a lot, while an early defeat can hurt the Gunnerz title hopes. The teams know each other from last season, when they finished 1-1 against each other. YOUNG GUNNERZ won at their home pitch by 7 runs, then after a beautiful bowling performance Crni Zmajevi took the second match with a 6 wickets victory. There was some movement in the ranks of the Black Dragons, as 4 of the player's from last season's squad already left the team, while 2 more is about to leave (Edward Dulling batsman and Pediya Aamir all rounder). There was lot less changes at the home side, as their only signing this season so far is Frederick Gibson (a 30-year old, experienced opener). Since Crni Zmajevi seems to be a pinch weaker at the moment, YG got only better, it's not risky to say that they're the favorites for tomorrow's clash. It can be seen as a clash of generations too, since YOUNG GUNNERZ mostly employing older, experienced players, while Crni Zmajevi is more like a raw, young, but talented team. Also, YG has more focus on seam attack, while the dragons likes to employ more spinners. Nothing is impossible in cricket, but I'd say YOUNG GUNNERZ will take this.

U19 World Cup Final Today (England vs Australia)

England plays against Australia in this year's u19 world cup. Both teams had a tough game yesterday. England lost 9 wickets quite early, then the last partnership had an amazing effort to give them a decent score. It turned out to be a rather big job to do for Kenya, England won by 33 runs. On the other leg Australia faced a decent Sri Lankan team, who did all they could do cause an upset. Sri Lankan openers made an awesome job in the early overs, but slowly Aussie started to dominate and snatched a 24 runs victory. Teams are pretty even, both had 139k rating in their semi final games. England seems to have a stronger bowling line up with the wonderkid Michael Inverarity, while Australia have a stronger bowling. Pitch has been set to flat, weather is cloudy. Going to be a hell of a game. Starting now at 15.00 ftp time. Prediction? I smell a victory for England, by a small margin. It's a close game, really.

Match Report 10 Jul 11: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs DazBurg's Greatness (one day friendly)

 Time has come to our first test match before the season kick starts. Manager verdi organized a friendly with a higher rated opponent on this humid afternoon. DazBurg's Greatness hails from Scotland, where their one day squad competes in division 3. They pretty much out rate us in all aspects of the game, plus we are playing with a mad bowling line up (to test our fast bowlers on slow pitch). The weather also affects our squad, since we are not the best in terms of endurance. The  line ups were the following:

 DazBurg's won the toss and decided to bat first. The opening spells had our two young fast-bowlers on, Dharmaratna Amalean and Alamgir Zia. The match started as a nightmare, as DazBurg's scored 76 runs in just 10 overs. Amalean's ER was awful, although he managed to steal a wicket in the 10th. Farrell managed to drag us a little bit closer, with a maiden and some low score overs.Our wicket taking today was beyond awful, we failed to take their wickets early, which would have been crucial since they have played without all rounders. The medium pacers managed to lower their run rate, but with captain Mazin's bad ER, it proved to be in vain. They have ended their innings with a huge 312 runs. We had a lot of misfields and dropped 3 balls. It was obvious it's nearly impossible to chase down this, and it proved to be true. Our innings started slowly, and we lost both openers by the 10th over.Abolhassan got out first with only 14 runs, van Onselen followed him shortly by the 10th over, with 21 runs from 29 balls. Even though we had a very long batting line up, at this point we needed a miracle to come closer to DazBurg's. By the break we were at 91/5:

With only 5 wickets in hand and 222 to climb in just 25 overs, all we could hope for is to shrink the margin, and minimize the loss.Bernard and Anwar was up to bat. The young batsman and our old favourite AR made the team's best partnership today, with a combined 58. We were struggling until the end, after Anwar's departure only Mazin managed to score some, with a decent strike rate. DazBurg's lethal top order and killing bowlers proved to be a mission impossible for our team. DazBurg's Greatness won by 137 runs.

 Positives are the batting performance of Anwar and Mazin (who struggled at bowling though), Farrell had a decent debut game. Endurance is still a concern for this season, especially for Amalean. He will probably get more chances in the Twenty20 team. Next time it's going for real, the opening Twenty20 game against YOUNG GUNNERZ. We need to improve a lot, especially in batting. Go Dragons!

Season goals, thoughts

Tomorrow we have our final pre-season friendly against DazBurg's Greatness at the Dragon's Lair. The groundsmen preparing a slow pitch, as manager verdi wanna see his squad's performance on that wicket. Weather is expected to be humid, probably we will see a close, low scoring game with bowler's dominance.
After a bit of scouting it's obvious that the opponent has a balanced team, with equally strong batting and bowling. It won't be easy to get a result. Manager verdi wants to see how some of our bowler's performance on slow (especially the 2 fast bowlers) and also to put the batting line up under a test. 2 Fast, 2 Medium and 1 Finger Spinner will take part in our bowling attack, 3 of them are All-Rounders, so batting lineup should have enoygh depth.  It's not an ideal combination for slow pitch, but it's time for a test :)
Next Tuesday the new season finally starts with an away game against Young Gunnerz.Last season we had one win and one loss against this strong side, who has got even stronger by singing a high rating player. I will write a more detailed pre-match analysis on Monday.

Pre-Season is the time for setting up our goals for the next 14 weeks. It's going to be an interesting run, strength of the divisions seems to turn in our favour a bit. At least i hope so, let's see our goals for season 14:
One Day 3.1: Last season's miraculous survival (securing division membership in the last game, by better NRR) should be something we can build on. The div looks a bit weaker this year, with the two newcomers from 4th. Big guns like Boo Kroo, Mujahedine and the demoted Farmers Union Iced Coffee CC looks well out of reach. Lahore Kings 11 and Ujpest Devils looks a bit stronger and more experienced too, but against Khan Warriors and Surray we have a good chance to win. Plan is to play our strongest 11 against the weaker sides (Khan,Surray and Ujpest), and giving chance to gain experience to our less skilled players. This should give the much needed rest to our star players. Hard to predict the final results, I can see Boo Kroo as the favourite for the title. Mujahedine should be their closest rival. Our aim is to avoid relegation, I feel we can reach as high as 5th.
T20 3.3: Our t20 performance last year was pretty decent, finished 4th, and we wasn't too far from 2nd. Mujahedine dominated whole season, but luckily this year the demoted team is computer controlled, so one less rival. YOUNG GUNNERZ and Beiram's 11 will be our hardest opponents, I think Swing Kings CC and Team Furry are a bit weaker than us. We will play our strongest team in all the games except against the bots, where younger players get their share of t20 cricket. I can't predict the winner here, althought YOUNG GUNNERZ seems even stronger than last season. So 1st YOUNG GUNNERZ, while us being 2nd. Bots to go down.
Youth 2.2: We lost the core of the team, since they got promoted to senior squad. Now it's time for Pediya Androo again to bring glory to the club! Our pre-season warm up match finished with a good victory. Squad looks good enough to compete for the title. It's hard to tell really, seems like all the teams lost important players. I really can't make any tips here, we wish to finish in Top 3. If Androo plays good :)

So that's for the stuff on the pitch, now let's see the finances. With this season's decreased wages (our costy players left the team) and increase sponsorship we should be able to save a decent amount of cash by the end of season. I plan to get around $500,000 extra. No planned expenses, probably one or two more players will be added to the squad, if we can find team for a reasonable price. Still a lot of money left on the account, so that's shouldn't be a problem. Target is one more prospective batsman and a bowler.

Pre-season changes in squad

As the start of season approaching, there have been a couple of changes in the senior squad. Six players left so far, including young spinner Oshadee (Sold to Cheltenham CC for $1,000), freshly promoted batsmen Stuart Gilkes and Blake Chapman (both sold to Cute Puppies for $4,000 & $18,000 respectively), two experienced
batsmen, Oliver Owens (Sold to Cocolocomotion for $134,008) and Sadun Madurasinghe (Bristolshire snatched him for a neat $222,672), and finally the bowler star of last season's, Bandula Rifard (Sold to Gonvillus Daredevils for $192,000). Two more players are expected to leave, Edward Dulling and the 20-year old Arjun Saravanan. With 3 key players left, we got a nice stash of money at hand, also a hefty ~$30,000 a week saved on salaries. As a replacement, two players joined the club, Isaiah Farrell, a 25-year old medium pacer, with healthy batting skills and good technique. Also a batsmen joined our ranks, 22-year old south african Andries van Onselen. He has strong batting and technique skills with Boundary Hitter talent. He is a very promising player, who can have a long term future in our squad. Manager verdi planning to add one more talented young player to the squad, if he find someone for a reasonable price.
To summarize, the squad seems to be a bit weaker this season. Our divisions got a bit weeker as well, so the squad should be able to stay up in the 3rd division. The positive side is, overall wages are a lot lower this season, this year is for consolidation in every aspect. Youth squad most likely not getting any signings this season, we will try to rely on our academy. Manager verdi constantly monitors the transfer market though, so
if a player who could boost the squad, and have a decent price pops up, he will have the cash at hand to sign him.

Match Report 07 Jul 11: Crni Zmajevi Cricket Club vs Cheltenham CC (youth friendly)

Cheltenham played at Crni Zmajevi's home ground. The conditions were overcast/uneven, so that gave some advantage to the seamers. The line ups were the following:

Cheltenham lost the toss and Miran Haider decided to bat first. Crni Zmajevi started their innings.  Runs were flowing slowly in the first 10 overs (RR 4.90), when the partnership of Usama Ali and Amit Shankar scored 19 runs. Run Rate kept on raising till the mid break, Crni Zmajevi batted strong, while losing only 1 wicket. From the 21st over run rate started to drop a little, but Chandrasena stepped up at batted brilliantly in the last 10 overs. Innings ended with 278-3.
  After a short break, Cheltenham started their innings, but couldn't do much to stop our excellent bowling attack (after 10 runs: 32-3). Thanks to some fielding mistakes they managed to improve their run rate a little, but the late spells turned out to be lethal for them: Sean Adams took 3 wickets, Ashe Kumble did two maidens, and Usama Ali finished them off at 33.6.

The two teams were miles away from each other. Manager verdi wanted to measure up the current strength of the squad, since many players went into the senior squad this season. There was some excellent performances, batting was strong, Usama Ali scored 70 runs from 68 balls, Brad Decker 62 from 52, and Chandrasini Chandrasena finished with an excellent strike rate of 186.96 and 43 runs. On the bowling side, the two best performers were Sean Adams with excellent economy rate (3.00) and 3 wickets. Along with Qadim Najjar's 2.6 ER and 2 taken wickets.Fielding was alright, wicketkeeper Usama Ali can be proud of his 3 catches and 1 stumpings. All rounders performed well. All in all, this was a good build up game for the upcoming season. Next week we'll see how well this guys can perform in competitive matches.