RBCC’s first XI travelled to Wemmel in a confident mood following their win against AICC. With Muneeb on national team duty (congratulations to the Cricket Belgium team by the way, for their excellent performance against Guernsey) Ricky stepped forward to take over as captain.
Ricky duly won the toss and we batted first. Mustafa and Abdulwahed gave us the solid start that we needed. Jawad came in at first wicket down and was dropped off his second ball playing an uncharacteristic lofted shot; ICCB would rue this miss as he proceeded to top score with a serene 48. Abdulwahed continued his fine form from the Paris trip, making 43, while Afzal added 33 before being bowled with our score on 200. A flurry of late wickets saw RBCC all out for 224 from 47 overs; not the biggest total but we thought this was a good score on a tricky pitch with some variable bounce.
We came out all guns blazing in the field, with Salim taking the first wicket and Ricky joining in the next over thanks to a brilliant catch by Abdulwahed. Our fielding was good all day, we didn’t drop a single chance given to us. Ali joined the wicket-taking fun from the other end, bowling an absolute peach to clean up one of their batsman. As usual, Channi applied the finishing touches (fast becoming his trademark!) but the last wicket was a piece of art by Salim, a direct throw from midwicket to run the batsman out. The star performer though was undoubtedly Ricky, leading from the front and finishing with figures of 10-3-31-5.Â
ICCB were all out for 118 in 28 overs, RBCC winning by 106 runs.
Well played lads, let’s keep this run going!