Middlesex Tamil Sports and Social Club

Raghu Loganathan And Niro Sritharan Lead MTSSC To An Emphatic Win

abdul — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:37:18 +0000

Saturday, 12^th May 2012

Osterly Cricket Club Vs. Middlesex Tamil Sports & Social Club at Osterly CC Grounds

A brilliant half century by the No.3 and a magnificent five wicket haul by the left arm spinner seal a thrilling victory for MTSSC against Osterly CC.

MTSSC began the 2012 season in style by beating Osterly CC by 31 runs on Saturday afternoon. MTSSC’s newly appointed captain Abdul Hamza won the toss and elected to bat on a slow pitch. Following a quick start by the openers Harry Singh and Jenson Singharajah, the decision to bat first seemed to have backfired as MTSSC went on to lose both openers with the score at just 20.

MTSSC needed to steady the ship and that was exactly what the next pair provided; a well measured partnership between Raghu Loganathan and Thashrif Gaffoor. The pair batted patiently during their excellent partnership of 67 with both batsmen rotating the strike regularly. Once they laid the foundation, the batsmen started accelerating with ease finding the boundary at regular intervals. Raghu Loganathan’s six over extra cover was the highlight of the inning as he came charging down the track and timed the ball to perfection as it sailed over the fence. Thashrif Gaffoor on the other hand didn’t allow the Osterly CC bowlers time to settle either as he kept scoring runs at a good rate. The partnership was finally broken when Thashrif Gaffoor tried playing a cut shot off a ball too close to the stumps and was bowled. Meanwhile, Raghu Loganathan coasted through to his half century and looked set to reach yet another century for the club.

Raghu Loganathan reaching his well deserved half-century...

MTSSC then suddenly appeared to have handed over the initiative back to Osterly CC when they lost 5 quick wickets. Niro Sritharan was the first to depart as he was adjudged LBW when he attempted a lofted drive, Yogi Raithatha was stumped and Kavi Kannathasan was caught shortly afterwards at midwicket.

The MTSSC inning looked to go further downhill when Raghu Loganathan’s valiant display came to an end when he was stumped as the team looked to accelerate towards a big score. His exceptional inning had enabled the rest of the team to bat around him and had provided the bowlers with a defendable target. Kush Shah was caught behind shortly after and MTSSC looked at the prospect of being bowled out. However a good partnership between debutant Ashok Andrew and Abdul Hamza helped MTSSC reach a defendable target of 200 in their allotted 55 overs. Osterly CC was set a target of 201 for victory and 164 to gain a winning draw and 4 points along with it.

MTSSC started off proceedings with Kavi Kannathasan at one end and Kush Shah at the other. The two bowlers bowled a disciplined line apart from the occasional delivery which was dispatched to the boundary by the aggressive Osterly CC Batsmen. Kush Shah made the first break through when he clean bowled Osterly CC’s opener with a brilliant in-swinger.

The slow Osterly CC pitch forced Abdul Hamza to bring the spinners on early and it paid dividends as both the spinners, Niro Sritharan and Hammad Bukhari made inroads early on. However, the Osterly CC batsmen kept on with the required run rate with their aggressive style of batting. MTSSC got back into the game as both left arm spinners bowled excellent spells to give the team a fighting chance of winning the game. Niro Sritharan’s discipline with the ball paid off as he got wickets on a regular basis. Hammad Bukhari on the other hand provided exemplary support by making the batsmen work hard for their runs. Osterly CC reached the target of 164 for the winning draw with a few overs to spare and two wickets in hand. MTSSC was left with no choice but to go for the kill and that’s exactly what they did as Niro Sritharan grabbed the ninth wicket of the Osterly CC line up to bag his five-wicket haul. He had done an impeccable job, especially considering he was brought on as a part-time spinner. Hammad Bukhari’s magnificent spell was completed when he claimed Osterly CC’s final wicket to provide MTSSC with a nail-biting win.

Niro Sritharan with the bat...

The jubilant players celebrated an outstanding victory against an exceptionally tough opposition. The club now aims to build on the victory and win the Championship in order to gain promotion.

Well Done MTSSC!!!

New Year Celeberation 14th April 2012

Admin — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 10:25:26 +0000

Happy New Year

Under 15 B’s scrape through whilst ‘A’s inflict crushing defeat

Admin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:09:41 +0000

Hi Boys & Parents,

Yesterday we had 2 under 15 indoor games. The first was the last game for the under 15 ‘B’s. Their opponents were Harrow St Mary’s ‘B’ to whom we had already lost previously in the same tournament. We needed a good performance from our boys as we needed to end our indoor season on a high. As our regular skipper Kevin wasn’t available for this match I believe Nathan appointed Dilshan as the stand in captain. We also didn’t have either of our regular keepers so Keson stepped in as wicket keeper. When Keson was in the under 11’s he wasn’t very keen on keeping wickets however he stepped in yesterday to help out the team. Thanks go to Keson for this.
We won the toss and elected to bat first. We opened with Krishan and Dilshan and got off to a very slow start. We lost our first wicket of Krishan who was caught behind when the score was just 13. However Keson and Dilshan batted well to put on a good partnership. The scoring rate however was still quite slow as we had only scored 50 runs for the loss of 1 wicket at the end of the 8th over. Then some big hitting and quick singles in the 9th over along with the help of some wides enabled us to score 24 runs in the 9th over. Dilshan had to retire in the 10th over as he had scored 32 runs. Keson then took on the challenge to score 3 further singles off the wall before he was bowled for 27. Joshua joined Vaheshan and tried to sneak another single off the last ball but was run out and could not add to the final score of 86 for the loss of 3 wickets in our 10 overs. Harrow St Mary’s also helped our total by conceding 22 extras of which 16 of them were wides.

We knew that if we were to win this match we needed to bowl and field well. Harrow St Mary’s also knew that 87 runs wasn’t beyond them but were annoyed that they let the game slip in the last 2 overs. They would have preferred chasing a total of around 60 rather than 87. Our first over bowled by Krishan didn’t go to plan as we conceded 4 wides in a total of 12 runs. However a tight 1 run over from Dilshan pulled it back. We fielded very well holding on to our catches, stopping the boundaries and running out batsmen which brought wickets at regular intervals. Joshua bowled well to take 2 wickets. The only advise that I can give to Joshua is to try and bowl a bit quicker and throw in the odd slower delivery. Good batsmen will have too much time to play him. We had Harrow St Mary’s on 56 for the loss of 5 wickets chasing 87 to win. Their opening batsman Shrey then played a very sensible knock. I believe he is an under 14 player who showed a great deal of maturity for his age. Being the last batsman he didn’t have the 30 run limit imposed. He also knew that they needed 21 off 11 legal deliveries. He took 3 singles in the last 3 balls of the 9th over to take the score to 67 at the end of the 9th over. Now it was 20 runs needed off the last over. Dilshan bowled the last over but Shrey kept managing to steal 3’s by hitting the wall and setting off for a single. Dilshan also took his fielder from the leg side in an attempt to stop the single on the off but Shrey still managed to score 12 runs off the first 4 balls which left them needing 8 off the last 2. However Shrey was run out looking for a 5th single when Krishan fielded and ran him out at the non strikers end. So we had won the match by 6 runs. Even though our bowling and fielding was good we didn’t put enough pressure on Shrey in the last over given that we had 3 players on the off trying to stop that single. The fact that we ran 3 players out and held 3 catches shows we generally fielded well apart from the last over. We also only conceded 11 wides compared to 16. Some might say this is good but to me this was too much as it meant that we bowled nearly 2 extra overs. The main area where we were weak yesterday was the slow start when we batted. I agree it is important to build a partnership especially after the early loss of Krishan and also given that we didn’t have too much depth in batting. However we could have been a bit more positive in our approach to batting. Dilshan needs to bat with intent from the very beginning as he has the talent to do this. Kannan quite rightly made this point.

So our under 15 ‘B’ played 6 matches in all. We ended up winning 4 of them and losing 2. If only we had not lost to West Harrow we would have topped the table outright. According to Nathan’s league table (Yet to be confirmed by the league) we are joint top with Bessborough ‘B’ with 4 wins and 2 losses. If this is the case we should come out tops as we won both the head to head matches against Bessborough. We shall have to wait and see.

Our next match was the under 15 ‘A’s against Lohana. When it comes to the A team Nathan always has a problem of whom to leave out. As explained before we have 7 solid players and it is always a difficult decision on whom to leave out. We have to balance between playing a strong side and also achieving a good run rate (should we tie on points with Harrow St Mary’s) against giving everyone a chance. For this game Nathan had to make the tough decision of leaving Seerone out. We batted first and opened with Sachin and Pira. Sachin was in excellent form and a lovely 6 in the first over showed our intentions. We lost our first wicket of Pira for 7 when the score was 38 in the 5th over. We were going at 7 runs per over at this time. Kishan then joined Sachin and we accelerated the scoring. We lost Sachin for 28 at the end of the 7th over with the score on 63. Ashwin then joined Kishan and put on a very good partnership. Kishan had to retire with his score on 35 to bring Beeshman in. We lost Ashwin in the 4th ball of the last over for a quick fire 22 with the score on 104. We managed another boundary before Surendra was run out without scoring attempting to sneak a single off the last ball. So we ended up on 108 for the loss of 4 wickets at an average of over 10 runs per over.

We had completed half the job of putting a good total on the board and now it was down to our bowling and fielding. Our bowling and fielding has always been our strong points and it didn’t let us down this time either. We opened the bowling with Kishan and his first 5 balls conceded 12 runs. Lohana must have thought that it would be an easy target to achieve at this point. How wrong they were. In the next ball Kishan had their opening batsman Akash caught by Ashwin. This was a very good overhead catch by Ashwin. The second over bowled by Beeshman conceded just 3 runs. Kishan’s next over (our 3rd) was a double wicket maiden that all but finished off Lohana. He caught and bowled Bhavik their number 3 batsman and clean bowled K Gupta their number 4 batsman in the 3rd over. The game was all but over at this point. Lohana had gone from 12 for none to 15 for 3 in 3 overs. Lohana found runs were very hard to come by. At the end of the 9th over Lohana had crawled to 30 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. The 10th and final over bowled by Beeshman saw the last 2 wickets fall. The first was a good catch by Pira off the wall to get rid of Ravi and the final wicket was an excellent diving catch by Sachin to get rid of Roan. Lohana being all out for 34 runs in the 10th over. Beeshman’s fielding must also be mentioned as he stopped many a single and must have saved at least 10 runs. Last but not least is Pira’s keeping. This boy has improved immensely as a wicket keeper. It was so delightful to watch him attempt a stumping off 3 consecutive balls bowled by a pace bowler. By breaking the stumps so frequently he ensured that the batsman never left the crease. Excellent work Pira.

This was an excellent performance by our boys and it is a treat to watch them play. In my opinion this under 15 A indoor team has been the best that the club has produced. Anyone who wants to see how this game should be played at the highest level should come and watch these boys play. You have 2 further opportunities to do this on Sunday the 25th of March when we play Bessborough at 2pm and Harrow St Mary’s at 4pm. So please come and support our boys in these last 2 matches. If we win these 2 final matches we would be area winners and then we go on to the area finals. This was an excellent all round performance and if I am to be critical as Mahen put it we could have bowled a bit tighter and not conceded the 4 wides and 1 no ball. When it comes to playing Bessborough and Harrow St Mary’s every run will count.

We had a little incident regarding the match ball which I am not going into. The only point that the boys must learn from that is that the match ball cannot be changed mid way during a match unless the ball is not suitable or dangerous to play with. It must be the same for both teams playing. This is the laws of the game.

Thank you to all the parents who came to see the game. A big thank you to Kannan who came and umpired the first game. I was very happy to see him there given that he now has other commitments. Thanks also to Flavian our replacement coach who was there to see both matches and offer advice. Thanks to Mano for umpiring the second game and also for all his expertise. Not sure what we will do without him. Thanks also to Nathan who came in early to setup the wickets and organise the games. A special thank you to our colts chairman Suren and our colts secretary Loges who also came to support the boys. As usual we had A team boys coming early to help and support the B team. As mentioned many a time this is so pleasing to see the unity in the age group. Lastly thanks to all the boys of both the teams who came and performed well and made us all proud of them. We had 7 players available for each of our teams. It’s good to see us getting into the habit of always having a 7th man for indoor games and we should continue this (12th man) in the outdoor games.

Report by Dinesh Peerez

Season 2012

Admin — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 15:06:38 +0000

Girls Cricket Coaching

Admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:46:29 +0000

Girls Cricket Training on Every Tuesday at 6.00pm at Nower Hill High School, George V Avenue, Harrow HA25 5RP. Free coaching till end of Spring Term. Please Call Warren on 0795 766 6849 to book a place.

Under 11 A & B Indoor match against Lohana, West Harrow and MTSSC A vs B on 19th Feb 2012

Admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:31:48 +0000

We had 3 matches for our age group last Sunday the 19th of Feb,

Our 1st match was between the MTSSC B team and was against Lohana. Because of time restraint, our boys did not have sufficient time to warm up and it showed when we were asked to bowl. Our bowlers had too many loose deliveries and Lohana’s opening batsmen cashed in gratefully. By the end of 4 overs, Lohana had raced to 70 runs for no loss, and from here, it was catch time for our team. Sarrusan Sabesan brought some hope for our team by getting 2 of Lohana's middle order batsmen in one over but normal service resumed afterwards and runs flowed freely and Lohana closed the innings with a mammoth score of 162 runs at the end of 12 overs. Of the bowlers, Sarrusan took 2 wickets, but generally all our bowlers were poor and gave away too many wides and "hit me for 4" balls. Also our fielders did not support the bowlers and were sometimes trying to field with their feet than with their hands.They looked lazy or unfit to bend down and field the ball. They were also guilty of waiting for the ball to come to them instead of moving around to get to the ball.

When we batted Rishi and Seshan opened the innings, and while Rishi batted sensibly, wickets fell regularly from the other end and we were all out for 69 runs. Rishi retired after making 30 runs. Our Captain and star player of B team , Varshan was needlessly got run out, and I am sure next time, Varshan will make up his own mind when to take a quick run.

Even though we lost the match by a margin of 93 runs, it was a good learning curve for our boys, and that is the reason, that we are fielding a B team this year. The new boys who did not bowl in this match, your chance will come soon but you need to show me, how good you are in the nets weekly. It also shows what we know already, there is a big gap between the boys who have been playing for us for few years and the new boys who joined the team recently. The new boys will not bridge this gap unless their parents take them for some private training. In our club training each boy is going to have just 5 to 10 mins of batting and it is unrealistic to expect, that they can learn a lot from this. So I urge the parents, if it is possible to get them some private training so the boys can get the basics right or they will have lots of problem when some of them move to U13 next year, where the bowlers are lot more faster than U11.

Our 2nd match of the afternoon was between our MTSSC U11A team and West Harrow. We batted first and our openers Risharn and Suginthan put up a good opening partnership of 49 runs before Suginthan got out for 17 runs. Suginthan was very strong on anything that was pitched on the leg and scored most of his runs in the midwicket area. Risharn scored 30 runs before retiring. Rishan needs to move his feet to the pitch of the ball or he is going to miss many balls like he did yesterday. Our Captain Purushot came in at the fall of Suginthan's wicket and played very confidently and scored his runs quickly and retired after scoring 35 runs. At the end of 12 overs, we had scored 141 runs for the loss of 4 wickets.

When we bowled, our Captain Purushot was keen to give the boys who did not bat, a bowl and I fully agreed with him. We knew our total was very competitive and our plan was if West Harrow start scoring too many runs, then to bring our regular bowlers. Kithmina and Asvin opened the bowling and Kithmina was very impressive with his bowling. He was bowling straight with enough pace and in his 3 over spell and took 3 wickets for 9 runs. I think he is going to play a crucial role when we start playing outdoor matches. Asvin and young Rohan took a wicket each. Our keeper Risharn was keeping very well and made an excellent stumping on the leg side off the bowling of Rohan. Sanjeyan also took 2 good catches. West HJarrow were all out for 90 runs and we won the match by a margin of 51 runs.

Our final match was a local derby between MTSSC A team and MTSSC B team. MTSSC B Managers wanted neutral umpires for this match and at their request we got Mano and Dinesh, our senior age group Managers to come and officate the match. We also had to have a neutral scorer, so our Colts secretary Loges happily obliged.

MTSSC A batted first and once again Risharn and Suginthan opened the innings and put on a good partnership. Risharn once again batted well and scored 30 when he was run out while Suginthan scored 19 runs. Rishi took a good catch to dismiss Suginthan off the bowling of Jarrishan. Jarrishan also took the wicket of Purushot. At the end of the innings, Kithmina scored a quick fire 22 runs and boosted the A team total to 123 runs. Rishi bowled straight and his 2nd over was a maiden over. Varshan also bowled accurately and with heart.

When MTSSC B batted , it become apparent very soon, that this total of 123 runs was beyond them. Only Rishi batted purposefully and scored a well compiled 19 runs. At the end of the 12 overs, B team crawled to 72 runs and MTSSC A team won the match by a margin of 51 runs. Once again Kithmina bowled well and other bowlers Sanjeyan, Suginthan and Purushot also bowled their overs well. It was good to see Sanjeyan bowling well and taking a wicket ands also overcoming his no ball problem. It was also good to see Aaron Aloysious bowling straight and enjoying his bowling.

So at half way stage of Indoor campaign, MTSSC A team leads the table with 4 wins out of 4 matches and we have another 4 matches to go. MTSSC B team has got 2 wins out of 4 matches.

I like to thank all the parents who were there and supported both teams and provided refreshments. I also like thank Mano, Dinesh and Loges for officiating our derby match.

Under 11 A Team selection for indoor matches on 19th Feb 2012

Admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:46:59 +0000

The below boys from MTSSC "A" team will be playing in at least one of the matches that will be played on the 19th Feb. Pls confirm your availability asap.

19th Feb 2012
Match 1- MTSSC U11A Vs L West Harrow 12.45pm to 2pm
Match 2- MTSSC U11A Vs MTSSC U11B between 2.00pm to 3.15pm

Purushot Sadagopan
Risharn Chandrann
Suginthan Maniyalakan
Sanjeyan Mathyvannan
Asvin Kapilan
Kithmina Gunawardena
Rohan Battula
Aaron Aloysious
Janathan Karunakaran

Under 15B Indoor match against Bessborough ‘B’ on 12th Feb 2012

Admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:41:38 +0000

Yesterday the 12th of February saw our under 15 B team take on our local rivals Bessborough. I’m sure all of you are aware that Bessborough don’t mind losing to any team but MTSSC. However of late MTSSC have been victors with our A and B teams already beating them in this tournament.

The team for this match was
1. Keson Kugathasan (Capt.)
2. Dilshan Peerez
3. Krishan Patel
4. Jeykumaran Ashokkumar
5. Joshua Anantham
6. Vaheshan Ramaneswaran

Bessborough won the toss and elected to field. MTSSC opened with Krishan Patel and Dilshan Peerez. The 2 of them batted well and ran their singles. They put on a 59 run partnership before Dilshan had to retire in the 6th over for 32 runs which came off 20 balls. Krishan was then joined by Keson and they took the score to 70 before Krishan was run out for 14. Jey Kumar then joined Keson in the 8th over but was unable to play his big shots and was caught for 2 with the score on 78. Vaheshan joined Keson in the 9th over and the 2 of them took us to our final score of 90 for the loss of 2 wickets in the 10 overs. Keson played well and ended up unbeaten on 16 off 16 balls. Vaheshan remaining unbeaten on 4. We batted with purpose and took our singles well. All in all we ran 12 singles. It must be said that the Bessborough fielding wasn’t brilliant and did lack purpose. They also helped our cause by conceding 22 extras. There were 15 wides and 3 no balls which amounted to 3 extra overs.

When Bessborough came in to bat it was an all Patel combination of Aman and Kunal. We opened the bowling with Dilshan and we had our first wicket in the very first over. Aman was caught by Keson off Dilshan to leave Bessborough 1 down for 3 runs at the end of the first over. Even though all our bowlers bowled well, Joshua was the pick of the bowlers picking up 3 wickets for 22 runs in his 2 over spell. It turned out to be a Joshua and Dilshan combination as all of Joshua’s wickets were as a result of catches by Dilshan. Bessborough were clearly struggled with Joshua’s loop. Only Kunal Patel 19 and Dhillon Popat 17 reached double figures. The Bessborough wickets fell at regular intervals before they were all out for 62 in the 9th over. Vaheshan was the other bowler to take a wicket with Abbiram the last man out for 9, run out by Dilshan.

So all in all a pleasing performance by our boys and yet another victory against Bessborough. This time by 28 runs which is quite a margin in a 10 over indoor league match. We need to keep this momentum going and step up a gear for our final under 15 B game against Harrow St Mary’s which is 2 weeks away on the 26th of February.

Thanks to Nathan for umpiring the match and also to all the parents who came to see and cheer our boys. Once again the presence of Kishan Patel and Ashwin Muttiah from our A team who came to support the B team and also help them with their warm up showed the great team spirit within the under 15 age group.

Under 11 B Team selection for indoor matches on 19th Feb 2012

Admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:03:46 +0000

The below boys from MTSSC "B" team will be playing in at least one of the matches that will be played on the 19th Feb. Pls confirm your availability asap.

Varshan Chandrann
Rishi Murare
Sharujan Sriharan
Sharujan Sabesan
Birrunthan Gunabalan
Jordesh Konesh
Jarrishan Rajendran
Shesan Chandrasekeran
Mit Gor
Jathavan Subaharan
Senthur Shanmugarasa
Jathavan Subaharan

19th Feb 2012
Match 1- MTSSC B Vs Lohana between 11.30am to 12.45pm
Match 2- MTSSC A Vs MTSSC B between 2pm to 3.15pm

Under 15A Indoor match against Harrow St. Mary’s ‘A’ on 5th Feb 2012

Admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:25:37 +0000

Yesterday on a Snowy Sunday a crucial under 15 A group match took place between MTSSC and the mighty Harrow St Mary’s. This was a match of David vs. Goliath but in this case David was also going into the match unbeaten and with a lot of confidence. Just to put you into the picture of the importance of this match we had massive support with mums and kids adding to the usual dads and colts committee members.

Harrow St Mary’s were first in to bat and they would have never dreamed of what was in store for them. As all of you are aware our under 15 A team comprises of 7 very good players and it is always a difficult decision as to which one to leave out as only 6 can play in a match. So for this match Nathan the under 15 manager (maybe after some consultation with others) took the decision to leave Pira out and play Surendra. This was a key decision and in my opinion Surendra turned the match in our favour. We started off with Kishan Patel with Seerone standing behind the stumps. Kishan bowled a very tidy first over, just conceding 6 runs. We were bowling to Ian the HSM opening batsman who plundered 19 runs off Sahil Vora’s (Bessborough’s Hertfordshire county player) first over. Then came on Surendra and in his very first ball he had Ian caught by Kishan. He bowled a beautiful slower ball which Ian didn’t pick. He went through with the shot and was caught. I was told that this was the first time that Ian was out in this indoor tournament. In all previous matches he had scored the maximum score of 30 runs and retired. Kushal Patel the HSM skipper came to the crease to face two more dot balls before he was clean bowled. So at the end of the second over HSM were 2 down for 8 runs. They still had plenty of batting with Nikhil Patel joining Kamran. Kishan bowled the 3^rd over and then took over keeping duties from Seerone. The 4^th over bowled by Beeshman then saw Karan going for a big shot and being caught off the wall by Kishan. HSM were now 22 for 3 at the end of 4 overs. Ashwin came on to bowl the 6^th over in which we got the 4^th HSM wicket. This was the first time I saw 2 HSM players at the same end of the wicket and arguing which one was run out. Nikhil was given out as Amar had not left his crease. HSM 4 down for 31 at the end of 6 overs. Sachin came on for the 7^th over and even though Amar hit a 6 Sachin got his man when he caught and bowled Amar. HSM 5 down for 40 in the 7^th over. Ashwin bowled the 8^th over and just conceded 5 runs. Sachin came on for the 9^th over and had Cheranvir caught by Beeshman to bowl out HSM for 47 runs with 9 balls remaining. I’m sure this has been HSM’s lowest score of the competition. Our bowling and fielding was superb. This fact was endorsed by the HSM umpire when he came over to their scorer when he said that we played really well.

If anyone thought that this would be a walk in the park they were wrong. Kishan and Seerone opened the batting for us. Harrow St Mary’s being the defending Area champions showed us why they were area champions by bowling tightly and not giving us any width to swing the bat and also no easy runs. We lost out first wicket when the score was 16 when Kishan was run out. This was a run out that we could have avoided as we didn’t need to take any risky singles. We had 60 balls to get 48 runs and a shot off the wall was worth 1 runs. Surendra then joined Seerone and the two of them took the score to 27 before Seerone looking to score a six was caught for 12. So we were 2 down for 28 in the 5^th over. Not much in it given that at the end of the 5^th over HSM were 3 down for 28. Amar Dev bowled the 6^th over and Surendra was bowled in this over to leave us 3 down for 30 at the end of the 6^th over. HSM were now for 4 down for 31 in the 6^th. We were still on target as we only needed 5 runs per over just that we had lost 3 wickets. Then Sachin was joined by Ashwin and the two of them batted sensibly. HSM knew that all we needed was a shot off the wall to get us the runs so they kept bowling on the leg stump. Sachin was aware of them and played some lovely shots off his legs to find the wall for the singles. He did have a chance though when one of these shots went high up on the wall but Amar Dev failed to catch the ball. At the end of the 8^th over we were 3 down for 42 needing 6 more. Kamran was the bowler and we knew we had to try and score as much as possible in this over as the final over was to be bowled by Kushal who is a spinner. The pressure was also on HSM and this showed when Kamran trying to find the leg stump line conceded 6 wides in his first 4 balls of the 9^th over to give us victory. So MTSSC had beaten the mighty Harrow St Mary’s by 3 wickets with 2 whole overs left.

For all those present it was an excellent match to watch between the 2 only unbeaten teams in the competition. MTSSC have now played 5 and won all 5 of their matches.

Thanks go out to all the parents (mums and dads) and even the brothers and sisters who came to support their sons and brothers. Thanks to all the colts committee members and especially to Mano for umpiring this high profile game. Thanks to Loges our colts secretary and Kannan our coach. Special thanks must go to Nathan our under 15 manager and Keerthi our coach who prepared the boys for this match by having practice matches.

Report by Dinesh Peerez