In the absence of the experienced Zain and Paddy, Bilal was asked to take charge of the away game vs the in form Croydon CC with a varied and experienced set of players. A headline for the game, if required, could have been the well oiled slogan .. ‘catches win matches’.

After losing the toss and being forced to bowl a lively Sabil and Angus had first go at the openers but couldn’t prevent 6 an over being taken helped by a number of dropped catches
Neel and Nick took a similar turn with equal bad luck with Faras chipping in a couple of expensive overs.

But it was Sameer with his testing leg breaks that did the trick and he impressively removed the top 4 batters taking 2 caught and bowleds! Hassan and Sabil managed a couple of middle order wickets later with the help of Awais swapped to behind the stumps. But the heavy damage had been done leaving the visitors to chase 284 /6 at the pitch side grassy tea.

The chase was determined by whether the away team could keep free hitting scorers in to try and plunder the last 10 overs. But with only the skip sticking around the chase became too difficult.

However, a creditable 239 /9 and 6 points was achieved with Bilal working his way to 74. Hassan chipped in with 30 odd and a couple of 20 s from others got the score up but in the end it was insufficient.

10 wickets ,importantly , were not lost so under another scenario a losing draw could have been claimed along with those useful 6 additional points from, what was, a tough afternoon.