The Night Watchman

Fourth places Super Sledgers have brought The Blind Society’s unbeaten streak to an end with a comprehensive 5 wicket win at the TBS CG. Powered by excellent spells from Nascimento and Brew, and superb knocks from Daniel and Bennet, the Super Sledgers acheived what many teams have failed to so far in an incredible upset that left the home fans bitterly disappointed.

After winning the toss and electing to bowl first, the SS made quick inroads, taking star opener John Sandri out in the second over for a duck. TBS were missing the services of key batsman Vishal, and the all-round abilities of wicketkeeper Thommnna and pace bowler Manjari, and it showed as the home side kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Only the flamboyant left hander Gian Vedananda showed much resistance, with a fluent 73, and skipper Jaspal put in a heroic effort with an over-my-dead-body 48 not out. Barendran added in 41, but the rest of the line-up faltered on a hot day, with the wrist spin of Brewer and the out-and-out pace of Nascimento responsible for three wickets each. Medium pacer Blair took two key wickets as well, accounting for Vedandanda and Hamdan, and The Blind Society were restricted to an under-par 231/9.

Not defending a large target, TBS needed some quick wickets, but Pawan -filling in for Manjari- and Jaspal just couldn’t get the breakthrough needed. Bourne turned his arm over, but rather unsuccessfully as SS got off to an excellent start, 73/1 after 15 with the only wicket being of Griffith (42 off 51) run-out. Zorax was looking to his spinners to stem the flow of runs, but was soon to regret dropping the experienced Murti for the young Lokesh. Daniel and Bennet put on a massive partnership of 129 runs by feasting off the loose offerings from Lokesh and Pawan, and despite Pradip’s best efforts (2/47) and 3 chaotic run-outs, TBS just hadn’t done enough to win the match. SS got over the line with 6.2 overs to spare, Bennet carrying his bat for 82 runs off 83 balls.

“It was a disappointing loss, we just didn’t bat well enough. It didn’t help that Ranjani and Lokesh bowled quite poorly too when defending a small total. It was always a risk going in with just 5 main batsmen, I was hoping that Murat and Pawan would be able to contribute, but they didn’t and it was all left on Jaspal in the end there. We just lost too many wickets too frequently, Hamdan, Bourne, Sandri, they just didn’t stand up when needed and that cost us.”

“Bowling wise, Pawan hasn’t played for a while, but we did expect a bit better of him. What was disappointing was how Lokesh and Ranjani failed to utilise the conditions. It was always going to be difficult defending a low target, and we didn’t bowl well enough. We also dropped Daniel when he was on 35, and while we fielded well towards the end, it was just too little too late.”

“But full credit to SS, they saw this as an opportunity for an upset, and made great use of it. I was aware that a loss was a possibility with the line-up we played, and I’ll admit, it wasn’t one of my best decisions, but I figured we could experiment with 7 wins in the bag. And this is a message to the team now, to pull up their socks, to focus, and to start another unbeaten streak that will hopefully win us the championship.”

It has also been confirmed that several players are now set to leave the club if the opportunity arises. The list of the names of the players who will be participating in the Open Net sessions in order to ‘reveal’ their skills to the rest of the world has been confirmed, and there are quite a few shockers in that list. Namely the former Bangladeshi International Jaidhvani Pawan, and former first-team keeper Akarkkara Dristi. It hasn’t been officially announced that these players are leaving, but interested managers are free to place an offer to Zorax and enter negotiations with him if they wish.

List of players to take part in the Open Net session:

Seniors-

• Nick Chillingworth
• Akarkkara Dristi
• Jaidhvani Pawan
• Kisku Srimal

Youth:

• Fadil Ali
• Rawl Merry
• Yusuf Omar
• Zaki Qasim
• Yusuf Yaseen
• Jamal Yousif