PDCC put Peninsula in a spin
- Shamsul Kazi
- Jan 21, 2018
- 3 min read
Peninsula CC 100 (38.0) def by PDCC 2/104 (22.2)
K Chaudhary 3/1 (2.0) & 31*, S Kazi 2/28 (9.0), H Shahid 2/21 (5.0), J Sharma 33
Another fortnight and another game, this time across the bay in sleepy Redcliffe. With the city skyline visible in the distance, today’s game was at the picturesque Filmer Park, the home of Peninsula Cricket Club. Number one in the competition and undefeated to date, it was a tall order travelling to the fortress. The challenge was only further amplified with M. Boys being added to the rather large injury list and opener N Jain away on travel. In to the team came international imports, Dillon Hamill and Jonathan Buttery. Gus Douglas and Jitu Sharma also made their returns after various amounts of time away.
Rain overnight, humid conditions and a thick outfield made the toss an important one to win and with overcast conditions it only made it more tempting. Thankfully Captain Corrigan’s lucky streak continued and he elected to bowl.
Without the regular firepower of Boys and Jain, it was back to the old stayers in Corrigan and Kazi to open the attack. Corrigan was as reliable as ever from the Georgina Street end though Kazi had some issues with control from the Esplanade end. It was Kazi, however, who got the breakthrough catching a skied bowl off his own bowling. Corrigan would open his account the following over with the aid of Pham who took a classic catch low down at mid-wicket.
Pham would then partner with Shahid to partake in partnership bowling reminiscent of the 1990s Pakistan swing contingent. Not many people knew which way the ball was going and the two created havoc, Pham going wicketless and Shahid picking up two, leaving Peninsula at 4/38.
Panju would then take over from the Esplanade end for the first of his ten straight and Hamill would come on to immediate effect, getting a finger on a straight drive that crashed in to the non-striker’s stumps, leaving the batsman stranded.
Panju would take his first wicket and be joined by his new spin partner in Kazi who almost had a wicket with his first ball were it not the one error in the fielding for the innings. It wouldn’t matter too much though as he’d go on to take the breakthrough wicket before Chaudhary would make the duo into a trio with his off-spinners.
Chaudhary would have almost immediate success taking the scalp of Peninsula’s last recognised batsman and then taking quick wickets in successive deliveries shortly after. The first a rank long hop and then the second thanks to some clever fielding by Sharma at silly mid-off. Peninsula all out for 100.
The batting was routine with only the loss of two wickets and PDCC chasing down the total in a mere 22.2 overs. Douglas was the first to go with a lofted on-drive being taken at mid-on, after having been dropped playing the same shot earlier in the innings and Sharma slicing a drive to point after drinks before Chaudhary came in for a couple of overs of heavy hitting to close the innings early.
With Sunnybank losing their fixture, it gives the doctors a one game gap above the cut off for finals with two games to go.
