Yet again another warm afternoon in prospect at the ICC Global Cricket Academy, Brian Scholtz as Skipper lost the toss as usual, and Darjeeling were doomed to the first 20 overs in the field.
With two of the Darjeeling boys still having failed to appear on time, Loose Cannons Skipper Richard Bradstock kindly lent the fielding side 2 able bodied men.
Brian took the new ball himself, hoping to bowl the ball a tad straighter than his previous wayward spell only getting shipped for 8 in the opening over, relying on youth and exuberance from the Academy End our junior player Jacob Raymond kept the ball straight, with the opening batsmen, Clint Birkenshaw and James Elliott-Square rotating the strike for the Cannons. CD Kotze came into the attack in the 5^th over hoping to stem the flow of runs, currently over 10 an over, and proceeded to gift the visitors a 22 run over. The Cannons were in full flow and all the bowling options that Darjeeling offered resulted in runs, Ben Jacob, Ash Banerjee, Stuart Matthewson and Gibbon Human all getting carted around the ground.
James Elliott-Square finally departed cleaned out by James Grisdale on the last ball of the 16^th over for a fluent 81, the partnership of 188 having done the damage, Ash Taylor joined Clint in the middle for a four over onslaught on the Darjeeling bowling, with the Loose Cannons blasting 94 to finish on 282 – 1 in their 20 overs, with Clint Birkenshaw 142 off 65 balls and Ash Taylor 31 off 12 balls.
Looking at the unenviable task of setting off chasing over 14 an over, Brian Scholtz went for a Jonathan Houghton – James Grisdale partnership hoping that these two could get Darjeeling on track in the run chase, the reality kicking in on the 4^th ball as Jonno was cleaned out by Nick Anderson. Chris Dommett strode determinedly to the crease and with his first scoring shot drilled a boundary; his fourth ball saw him waving his bat at a loose delivery from Tauseef Qadri to get caught behind. This brought together the high octane partnership of Brian Scholtz and James Grisdale. With a 21 partnership in full flow Brian found himself trapped LBW by Nick Anderson, bringing the left handed Noel Raymond to the crease for an 11 run partnership, before Big Gris going for a quick single found himself narrowly coming up short with Darjeeling finding themselves in all sorts of trouble at 39 – 4. With Jacob Raymond joining his dad at the crease the biggest of the afternoon’s partnerships was formed with 37 before Noel finally departed for 23, Ben Jacob joined his brother before being ruthlessly bowled by Bradstock. With the over’s diminishing and the tail looking very fragile wickets fell regularly with Jacob going for (9), Ash Banerjee(6) and CD Kotze (1) bought the unlikely paitring of Gibbon Human and Stuart Matthewson to the middle to try and avert a total humiliation with three and a half overs still to be bowled and with Darjeeling sitting on 90 – 9!! This pairing bought the third highest partnership of the day of 20, mainly gifted by wides with scoring shots consisting of two fours and a double. Darjeeling finishing well short of the target on 110 – 9 losing by 172 runs!!