This weekend’s action in the R.P. Singh memorial cup kicked off with two teams battling it out to register their first win of the year when RB United & Challengers Metro CC (CMC) faced off at the Cibubur Cricket ground. Morning dew & morning blues made the RB United skipper Josh, chose to field first after winning the toss and very soon he realized that the morning blues were not going away that soon.
10 runs came from the first over but Gaurav Tandon fought back with a wicket in his second over. At the other end, Vivek Singh, bowling after a long time, was struggling to control his swing and the umpires had to do a lot of hand-stretching pretty early on into the game. This hand-stretching then changed to hand-waving as Sakthi Seelan let loose against some very short bowling by RB United and CMC raced to 61 of 1 in the first 6 overs. Spreading the field out after the power-play didn’t help as the runs kept flowing off Sakthi’s bat and the score raced to 130 for after 12 overs and the first 200 run score of the year looked a distinct possibility.
The introduction of Jamie Gordon changed the complexion of the game as he along with Sujeet Ramgir claimed 4 wickets off the next 4 overs conceding only 12 runs and got RB United back into the game. But Manick and Ahmad Nur Arif hit 31 off the last 3 overs to ensure CMC finished on a strong 179 for 8.
The RB United chase got off to a disastrous start as they lost their top score Gaurav Sharma in the first over itself and continued tight bowling by Jagan & Sakthi Narayanan kept up the pressure. A couple of more wickets fell and at 20 for 3 after the first 6 overs, the RB United chase was in tatters. Ishan Bhaskar & Azhar Ali upped the ante but the ask was still pretty high at the halfway mark with 140 runs needed in the second 10 overs. Jamie Gordon’s scored a brisk 34 to round off good day for him personally, but RB United eventually fell short by 36 runs
