Croydon cup final Vs Royal Russell

We have reached the final with ease, but now we were going to have the toughest match so far in our successful season. We were to field first. An early break through from Ahmed Malik gave the team something to be confident about. Ahson Sheikh came in at first change and bowled amazingly. He took 3 wickets in his spell of four overs. Royal Russell had managed to put up a decent and challenging total of 115 runs with 9 wickets down.

Our openers got off to a horrible start, as Vandan Patel had been lbw for a golden duck! This had resulted in a lack of confidence for the team as the score was 1 run for 1 wicket.
We soon were 9-2 as our number three batsman Ryan Godfrey got bowled. Then all of a sudden, it looked as if our luck was changing as our other opener Aymun Ali and our number four batsman Myles Kenlock were scoring quick runs. They both dominated the opposition and were just dragging the cup home with an impressive knock of 54* by Aymun and a calm innings of 38* by Myles. We ended up winning the game with 7 balls to spare.

After St Joseph's College had got to the league final, they had one more obstacle to go through. If they were to win this they would be crowned Croydon League Cup winners. Our bowlers had a decent start when Aymun Ali came into the bowling attack at first change and took an important wicket. Later on Thomas Robinson caught a magnificent catch off Andrew Sayers' bowling, sending Riddlesdown's star batsman, Mussawa back to the pavilion. Then some neat and tidy bowling late on by Ahmed Malik and Vandan Patel resulted in a wicket a piece. This display restricted Riddlesdown to a weak total of 85 runs for 7 wickets from their 20 overs.

Our opening batsmen, Aymun Ali and Vandan Patel went in at the crease quite confident and managed to knock off the required runs with ease. This resulted in St Joseph's comprehensively beating Riddlesdown by 10 wickets with Vandan scoring 47* and Aymun at 33*.

Report written by Ahmed Malik.

See pictures of the team below: