Kai Tak Vs Police

Saturday 21st October Kai Tak visited the Police Training School to take on Police CC in a potential banana skin game for the Tak.

The weather conditions were fine for a change and it was hoped to win the toss and post a formidable target. We lost and were sent out to field. The idea was to let Dave Belcastro open along with Big Bad Bob Ward as they hadn't had much bowling between them and with Morley and Williams waiting in the wings Police would have to be that little bit more cautious. Belcastro started with a maiden over but all caution was thrown out the window when Ward tossed his 8 deliveries down going for 14 runs. He promptly decided to slow things down nicely and put the brakes on at his end. Belcastro kept on bowling really well and was very deserving of his 3 wickets.

After 10 overs Police were 33 for 2 with the very capable Nasir Hamed batting very well at one end. He managed to survive a couple of drop catches behind the wicket but with Morley and now Williams into the attack runs were very hard to come by and he eventually felt the pressure trying to hoik a recalled Belcastro caught at fly third man by returning vice captain Dave Ellis.

Wickets fell regularly and along with a couple of run outs Police were dismissed for 164 runs.

Bowling figures were:

Belcastro 7 overs 3wkts for 32 runs

Ward 9 overs 2wkts for 55 runs

Morley 8 overs 2wkts for 23 runs

Williams 9 overs 2wkts for 30 runs

Good figures all around with the only blemishes being 3 dropped catches and 16 wides. On a positive note Doubleday finally realised that keeping wicket is not for him......or the team!!

So the target was 164, a target that really should be no problem for our batting lineup.

Mohsin Naqvi and Andrew Fitzhardinge opened up the innings. The wicket at Police is a little bit tricky in that there is a slope on it and good bowlers using it to thier advantage are hard to get away. That's how I will explain the test match start to our run chase, after 10 overs we had 29 on the board and at the 17 over drinks mark were 67 for 3, certainly not where we wanted to be. Fitzhardinge had been removed for 17, Steve Campbell had been run out on 1 and Dave Ellis clean bowled for 2 by a nothing delivery. Naqvi was eventually removed out LBW for a grafted 36 and that brought together the old hands of Jeremy Doubleday and Andrew Bester. They both batted very positively and apart form one scare where both batsmen ended up at one end literally only for Bester to somehow make it back to safety due to an overly powerful underarm throw from the opposing fielder which sailed over the guy standing at the stumps. Bester continued pushing the one's and two's while Doubleday displayed perhaps his finest knock of clean hitting for a long time, it really was impressive stuff and pulled the Tak out of trouble. Bester was eventually caught for 25 and Patidar timed his entry to perfection hitting 4 singles to allow Doubleday to eventually finish the game off in style with a big six,his final score of 60 not out. Kai Tak reached the target in 31 overs and won by 5 wickets.

All in all a good game, continuity in the league schedule doesn't help our cause at all but at the end of the day a win is a win, 12 points in the bag and we move on.

Next game up is KCC Saracens at PKVR on Saturday 28th October. Team list will be out on Wednesday morning.