On 9th January 2022, Formosa Cricket Club travelled to Hsinchu and played 2 T20 away practice matches at NTHU Baseball ground againt the strong and experienced Hsinchu Titans which is their home ground as well.
Morning Game:
Titans won the toss and keeping in view of the favorable conditions for fast bowlers Titan’s captain asked FCC to bat first. FCC tried new opening pair of Pintu and Himanshu and they stitched a solid partnership of 60 runs in 9 overs. After loosing both the openers in quick succession Rahul played a quick cameo of 39 runs in just 20 balls and added another 63 runs to the total with Devang who played an anchors role. Rahul departed in 17th over while trying to accelerate. At the end of 20 overs FCC set the target of 162 runs to defend for bowlers.
Pintu started the bowling with a maiden over and removed the Titan’s opener in 3rd over. However, Titans played some good cricket with 100 runs partnership. Sadique finally broke the partnership in 14th over to get back into the game. Joseph bowled a good next over but 16th over by Himanshu went for 24 runs due to misfield going for four and couple of lucky edges going for fours thanks to the short back boundary. Joseph bowled another superb over picking 2 wickets on successive balls and gave only 4 runs but it was too late for FCC to defend. Titans chased the total in 18th over with 6 wickets remaining.
Batting Standout – Rahul [39(20)], Devang [29(27)], Himanshu [25 (29)]
Bowling Standout – Pintu [3-17-1], Joseph [2-12-2], Sadique [4-27-1]
Evening Game:
After the lunch brake, FCC took the field again and Pintu once again started bowling with a good over hitting good line and length. Titan’s openers started cautiously however Rahul came as a first bowling change in last over of powerplay and got the wicket of Titan’s opener restricting them to 41/1 after 6 overs. Sadique and Joseph bowled couple of tight overs and got 1 wicket each in 10th and 11th over. FCC bowlers lost the plot in last 6 overs giving away 91 runs and as a result Titans posted a total of 186/6.
Omesh and Himanshu opened the batting for FCC and started with couple of boundaries in the first over scoring 13 runs. However, FCC lost 2 wickets in the next 2 overs. Then Omesh and Pintu started to consolidate the innings and took the score to 87/2 in 10 overs. Omesh played some good cricketing shots to bring up his half century but got out while trying to accelerate in the 11th over. Rahul came next and scored couple of boundaries and looked in good touch. However, he got run out in a bizarre way on a no ball when the Titan’s bowler disturbed the wickets during his run-up in 14th over. Vikram then played a good inning of 28 runs in 22 balls and Pintu scored unbeaten 40 in 43 balls but FCC fell short of 11 runs in the end.
Bowling Standout – Sadique [4-36-2], Pintu [4-28-1], Joseph [4-30-1]
Batting Standout – Omesh [54(38)], Pintu [40(43)], Vikram [28(22)]
