Semifinal of Jan Hong 2020: FCC vs TCC warriors
TCC won the toss and elected to bowl possibly due to the little wet and heavy outfield and maybe also die the the semifinal from t10 playing in their heads.
Atif opened the bowling and had a plan in mind which he executed to perfection by getting the FCC star batsman Anthony (0 in 3) out without troubling the scorers and then be beautifully bowled Omesh (7 in 6). Warriors were a team cheering every ball and backing up their bowlers. Arun (the other opener) and Rahul tried to steady the innings and put together a 21 run partnership before Arun (12 in 18) departed for a lose shot and Rahul (14 in 14) followed him by losing track of his crease and getting stumped. Score here was 39/4 in 6.4 overs. All big guns of FCC had departed without much score on the board. Then Athula and Nitish steadied the innings after some nervous shots from Nitish. Both started playing some good shots all along the ground and stuck together 55 run partnership in 36 balls before Nitish got our trying to accelerate to another lose shot at 94/5 in 13.4 overs. AD and Athula stuck a 31 run partnership in 21 balls and before AD (11 in 12) departed in last over and Athula remaining not out. Krishna from TCC bowled we well in depth overs which resulted in restricting FCC to 132/6 in stipulated 18 overs. Atif (4-0-15-2) and Krishna (3-0-24-2) were pick of bowers with 2 wickets each and Athula (39* off 32)and Nitish (25 off 24) were the pick of batsman.
Formosans felt good at halftime with the score on board and were confident of winning this game if they controlled the extras and held on to their catches. They were also aware it was not going to be easy with the batting lineup of Warriors. Warriors openers started well and we’re going steadily before Rajat got out to a suicidal single with Pintu hitting the stumps directly at non strikers end from short long on (29/1 in 3.6). Arun brought himself to the attack and got the dangerous looking Rishi out with peach of a delivery that rattled the stumps. Then the two spinners of FCC bowled beautiful and in their 8 overs combined for 49 runs and 6 wickets. There were two great catches at mid wicket by Nitish, Ankit and Stephen held one catch each. No one really got in from Warriors and they ended at 115/9 in 18 overs. In addition to spinners Arun (4-0-21-2) bowled splendidly and Pintu was unlucky without any wickets but gave only 16 in 3 overs. FCC and TCA will meet each other in the finals starting at 9am on 9/6 at Yingfeng cricket ground. Go FCC!!!