08 Apr 2014

Phikwe Cricket Club's (PCC) dominance over Francistown Recreational Cricket Club (FRCC) was put to a halt on April 6.

The hosts, FRCC, who started their game badly, turned the tables around in the last two overs to win the T20 qualifier by five wickets. In a closely contested game, the Seleb Phikwe side won the toss and chose to bat first and from the 20 overs, they managed to score 124 runs for seven wickets.

Although PCC from their previous encounters had an upper hand against their opponents in the on-going T20 qualifiers, the team’s best bowlers, amongst them Sohel Doriya and Vasim Shaikh, were not impressive failing to make high scoring runs.

Taking up to bat in the match that lasted for almost four hours, FRCC was chasing a target of 125 runs from the 20 Overs.The team seemed not to make use of playing on their home ground, and in the first over they had their first wicket.

At 10 overs, FRCC was at its lowest record ever with 45 runs for one and with the target still far to reach, they continued to score the single point, not enough to make the much needed points to capitalise on the target.

On the 17th over, they were at 88 runs for four wickets and it was then that their most experienced and senior player and also the team captain, Sanjan Bhargava took to batting; thereby adding the much needed value to the team. From the 11 balls he received, he scored 30 runs with two sixes and two fours.

Raising his team’s scores to 118 for with two more over left, Bhargava, together with the team were now confident to topple PCC and they managed to make 11 runs within the last over to take up their runs to 129 for four wickets, ending the game with three more balls to spare.

The disappointed PCC club chairman Saquib Mohammed said the pitch was wet and it worked to their disadvantage and at the same time his team did not score as expected to raise the target for their opponent.

However, he said since they still have two more games to qualify, they will organise themselves better to make it to the finals where they are going to meet teams in the south. Ends