Cricket, is not only about a player having the skills and the will to win, it’s also about head and heart; using your head to play smart cricket, while putting your whole heart into the effort. Last Sunday Atlantis Cricket Club – NY showed glimpses of all those traits, defeating Pioneer Cricket Club by 10 wickets in the Metropolitan NY District Cricket Association’s Roy Sweeney Twenty20 Challenge quarter-finals. However, it was the Atlantis trio of Treon Forde, Randall Wilson and Nicholas Standford that pioneered the way for such an emphatic victory.
Treon Forde picked up five wickets off consecutive deliveries.
Winning the toss and opting to field on a hot, but low humidity day at the Roy Sweeney Cricket Oval in Brooklyn, NY, Atlantis took to the field with confidence against a team they had defeated during the just concluded Clement “Busta” Lawrence Premier League 40-overs tournament. However, cricket being the game of such glorious uncertainty, Atlantis took the match as serious as a championship final; as Pioneer stood between them and a semi-final berth this weekend.
The encounter was reduced to 18 overs as a result of the preceding match between Queens United and Spice Island running into the Atlantis vs. Pioneer scheduled 2:00 pm start, and concern by the umpires for the approaching fall daylight hour of darkness.
Pioneer opened with Dino Chooweenam and the often dangerous Troy Mars, however the spin pace combination of Alex Amsterdam and Dillon Bourne soon separated them. Bourne disrupting the sticks behind Mars (01) with the fifth delivery of his very first over and Pioneer’s score at six runs. Amsterdam immediately followed by clean bowling Chooweenam for 5, with the first ball of his second over, and the Pioneer scoreboard was unchanged.
Things did not get much better for Pioneer as wickets fell at regular intervals, except for a middle-order 98-run collaborative effort of Anthony Danrad (16), Travis Blyden (67) and Matthew Marques (15). The trio accounted for 81% of Pioneer’s 120 run total in the team’s 16.2 overs occupation of the crease. What happened to the remaining eight batsmen is a story best told by Atlantis’ match skipper Treon Forde, who had bowling figures of 2.2-0-5-5. Usually a fiver is not unheard of in cricket, however, five wickets off consecutive deliveries is a rarity and one would be hard pressed to find any record of such a feat; in any first-class match.
The hitherto unheard of accomplishment was recorded by Forde when he took the ball and the inning into his own hands, claiming the first of the wickets (Matthew Marques, 15) off the fourth ball of his second over, immediately followed by Gavin Singh’s first ball duck and Hugo D’Oliviera for a duck as well. Forde had thus claimed a hat-trick off the last three deliveries of his second over. However, he was not done yet, as he returned for his third and final over of the match; and with the first two deliveries he had ruled the day, claiming victims four and five (Alexandrion Kirton, 2 and Jahron Byron, 8) with successive deliveries.
Nicholas Standford and Randall Wilson
In some cricketing circles, the accomplishment of capturing four or five wickets in one match and off consecutive deliveries is recorded as a helmet-trick or two hat-tricks. However when Googled, capturing five wickets off five consecutive deliveries is referred to as a crown-trick, and is noted as not ever having been accomplished in first-class cricket, anywhere. Forde’s accomplishment was enough to earn him the Man-of-the-Match Award.
Travis Blyden’s belligerent knock of 67 (7x6s, 4x4s) off just 27 balls, was the highlight of the Pioneer inning, and a delight to watch as he spared none of the first four bowlers employed by Atlantis. The Pioneer wickets fell at 6, 6, 26, 49, 109, 111, 111, 111, 120 and 120. In addition to Forde’s 5 for 5, Alex Amsterdam had 1 for 20, Dillon Bourne 1 for 30, Greg Robinson 1 for 30 and Nosthusha Kenjige 1 for 34.
Atlantis’ fielding was found wanting in the area of catches, as no fewer than five chances were spilled among three fieldsmen. Pioneer also had their share of not holding on to a few chances offered by the Atlantis opening pair. Outside of not capitalizing on their chances of holding on to the catches offered, Atlantis did play with a lot of heart and used their heads to dominate their opponent; in an aggressive manner, with both ball and bat. The fairly young Atlantis team is playing fearless cricket and seeking to pioneer its way into the winning columns of the Metropolitan league, albeit as newcomers this season.
As remarkable as Treon Ford’s accomplishment was, he shared the spotlight with his team’s opening pair of Randall Wilson, 58 (5x6s, 3x4s) off 37 balls, and USA national Nicholas Standford, 55 (6x6s, 2x4s) off 28 balls, both batsmen emerging not out as Atlantis romped to 123 and an easy 10 wicket victory in 10.4 overs. The two batsmen delighted the late afternoon crowd on hand sharing 11 maximums and five boundaries between the two of them. Young Wilson was particularly harsh on Orlando Kirton, taking the bowler over the top for three successive sixes in one over. Dino Chooweenam did not fare any better as his bell was rung for three sixes in his only over bowled. Pioneer used six bowlers all of whom conceded between 14 and 25 runs each. Orlando Kirton was the most costly at 0.4-0-19-0, followed by the aforementioned Dino Chooweenam with 1-0-20-0.
The emphatic victory earned Atlantis a spot in this weekend’s semi-final against Villagers Social & Athletic Club at Roy Sweeney Cricket Oval. Match time is 2:30pm, following the first semi-final between Westbury and Spice Island cricket clubs at 10:30am, at the same venue.