By Saif Yasin
On a beautiful Mothers’ Day afternoon Big Apple C.C. squared off against Golden Arrow C.C. at Jacob Riis Park. Golden Arrow won the toss and elected bat first against a well-balanced Big Apple bowling line up. Current USA U-19 player C. Mirza was sent out to open the batting as well as A. Ramchartar.
Kumar Nandalall had 4 for 20 against Golden Arrow. Photo by Shiek Mohamed
For Big apple C. Senior and T. Johnson were given the responsibility of bowling the new ball. Mirza and Ramchartar had a brief opening stand before Ramchartar fell for 8 of the bowling C. Senior.
At the other end Johnson was bowling a similar spell as Senior; both pacers did well to restrict Mirza and new batsmen D. Patel in the first ten overs. The first bowling change saw K. Nandalall replacing T. Johnson followed by N. Balram replacing C. Senior. The two new bowlers continued putting pressure on Mirza and Patel and this would eventually lead Nandalall trapping D. Patel L.B.W. for 19. Nandalall would continue to wreak havoc among the Golden Arrow batsmen as he bowled a devastating spell of 4 for 20. All the while Mirza continued to wreak a little havoc of his own by taking the Big Apple bowlers to the boundary over after over. As the innings came to a close Mirza would eventually fall going for a big hit off C. Senior who was brought back in the attack to close of the inning. The youngster would depart for a well- played 79.Golden Arrow would reach a decent total of 167 in their allotted 40 overs.
Inning Summary
Golden Arrow: 167 for 8 (C. Mirza 79, D. Patel 13 and K. Dean 11)
B.A.C.C: K. Nandalall 8-1-4-20, C. Senior 8-2-32-2 and S. Raghubar8-0-22-0
In reply to Golden Arrow’s total the Big Apple players knew that big shots weren’t needed in order to win the match. Skipper Zaheer Saffie sent out the same opening duo of Mark “Chucky” Gomes and Mark Gomes to open the batting, but just as it was the case with Golden Arrow, their partnership was not long lived. Mark Chucky Gomes would fall for 9 of the bowling of B. Datt and this would send captain Zaheer Saffie to the crease. Saffie and Gomes would put on huge partnership that anchored the Big Apple run chase. While Saffie settled in Gomes seemed to be quite comfortable at the crease. On several occasions he took the aerial scoring route, hitting the Golden Arrow bowlers for 4s that were inches away from being 6s.
Eventually Saffie settled in and played the ball to all parts of the ground bisecting fielder after fielder. Their partnership would eventually come to an end after Saffie was caught off the bowling of R. Harrypersaud for a well -played 56, Gomes would fall soon after for 45 trapped L.B.W. to A. Hansrat.
At this point of the match victory seemed certain for Big Apple and wouldn’t take anything spectacular for them to reach 167. Unfortunately for Golden Arrow new batsmen Clain Williams and Kumar Nandalall wanted to end the match with style. They launched the Golden Arrow bowlers for boundary after boundary. They would see the Big Apple home in the 25th over ending the match on 25 and 16 not out respectively.
Inning Summary
B.A.C.C. 167 for 3 in 25 overs: (Zaheer Saffie 56, Mark Gomes 45 and Clain Williams 21 n.o.)
Golden Arrow: R. Harrypersaud 4-0-22-1, A. Hansrat 3-0-26-1 and B. Datt 5-0-30-1
Saif Yasin is a 16 year-old student at Scholars Academy and a member of Big Apple Cricket Club.