By Sham Ali
(Celebrating 45th Anniversary – Match #1270 / 20240728):- Cosmos whizzed past All Nations last Sunday at the mosquito coast, Beach 58, Far Rockaway on the backs of a pugnacious second wicket partnership between Shane Singh and Akash Rahim to position Cosmos for a possible spot in the playoffs.
With two more games left to be played before the playoffs, Cosmos needed to win to stay in contention. All Nations won the toss and without much hesitation they elected to bat on another warm day and a fast outfield. A tidy opening spell from Ryan Ganesh and yours truly kept this opposition quiet after Ganesh had struck an early blow in his second over.
Despite loosing an early wicket, All Nations batsmen R. Patel (41) and D. Persaud (17) dug-in and posted a good second wicket partnership of 59 runs. But Cosmos bowling attack kept pegging away, it was much more disciplined in this match, as they restricted this opposition to 65 for 1 in 13 overs. Cosmos needed a breakthrough, and it came with a bowling change when Antonio Rooplall did his magic with a rear spell of off-spin that was full of variety. He must have had a recollection of his boyhood days of a kiss-ka-dee or two on a mango tree pecking on a ripe mango, and as such, he timely decided on the target. He was spot on when he affected the breakthrough with his 5th and 6th deliveries, and knocked over the stumps twice in the 14th over. He was on a hat-trick, but it wasn’t to be, and Cosmos went into the drinks break with a good control on the match.
On resumption, Rooplall completed a good spell figures of 3 for 29. However, after that double blow from Rooplall, Cosmos held onto a firm grip on the match. The runs dried up with Junick Mingo operating from the other end. He kept a tight line in a military spell to return with figures of 1 for 10 as the opposition middle-order appeared quite brittle and slumped to 95 for 7 by the 20th over. Bavesh Utam had a taste of the pie on debut with the ball and sent down a few impressive overs of off-spin before Cosmos reduced All Nations for just 137 for 9 in their allotted 30 overs.
Cosmos in their reply got off to an aggressive start as they raced to 45 runs in just four overs, before Yogeshwar Ramgobin (11) fell to a loose shot. Shane Singh and Akash Rahim (20) then plundered the opposition attack that had no sting with Singh (87 no) doing the bulk of the scoring. The usual unbearable presence of mosquitos at Beach 58 were no where to be found; they too must have sensed that an attack was imminent and disappeared to another area as Cosmos raced to an emphatic 9-wicket victory with 17.4 overs remaining.
That victory has moved Cosmos into fourth place. However, that is a rather precarious position to be, since there are three teams that are on their heels with an extra game to play. It will be an interesting last round of games.
Cosmos Masters will play Connecticut Masters next Saturday at Beach 32.
Cosmos will play Staten Island next Sunday.