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CALETA HOTEL LEAGUE VICTORIES FOR GCC AND UKCCC.

The weekend saw comfortable wins for GCC and UKCCC over Grammarians and PGCC respectively.     Highlights were a maiden century for Steve Cary of UKCCC, better known for his bowling skills, yet another century from Christian Rocca of GCC., a four wicket haul for Raj Kochhar of Grammarians, and a backs-to-the wall innings of 69 from Kabir Mirpuri of the same Club.

GCC pile on the runs.

GCC won the toss at the Victoria Stadium on Saturday, opted to bat first, and proceeded to pile on the runs against an eight-man Grammarians side.   Rocca and the ever-improving Kieron Ferrary defied all efforts by the Grammarian bowlers to dislodge them as they put on 137 runs for the first wicket, aided and abetted by some wayward bowling which produced far too many wides.   Ferrary, who batted well for his 33, suddenly had a rush of blood to the head in the 22^nd. over, swinging wildly at a delivery from Kochhar and seeing his stumps spread-eagled.    This brought Gary De’Ath to the crease and the score had moved on to 171, when Rocca played no stroke to a ball from Kochhar only to see his off stump being disturbed, but by then he had helped himself to 104 runs., a score which included eighteen boundaries.    When De’Ath was run out, and Rudi Phillips and Chris Allan became Kochhar’s third and fourth victims of the afternoon in the space of six overs, the GCC innings threatened to collapse but a typical innings of 25 from Adrian Hewitt and some assistance from the tail enabled them to reach the very respectable total of 252/8 at the end of the allotted fifty overs.   For Grammarians, Kochhar returned figures of 4/35 and Charlie Harrison bowled his ten overs very economically to finish with 2/28.

Grammarians start slowly.

Grammarians lost the important wicket of Mark Bacarese with the total on 15 and John Day went four runs later.   Kabir Mirpuri and Richard Buzaglo then put on 54 runs for the third wicket, but these runs were slow in coming and Grammarians were soon falling well behind the required run-rate.   Buzaglo went in the search for an acceleration to the scoring rate as did the middle order, and although Mirpuri held out until the very end for 69, the outcome of the match was never in doubt as Grammarians were dismissed for 183, to give GCC victory for the considerable margin of 69 runs.   For GCC, Chris Allan took 3/46 and Bob Brooks 2/32.   GCC thus went home with 21 points to Grammarians’ six.

Extraordinary recovery by UKCCC.

PGCC won the toss at Europa on Saturday, and surprisingly asked UKCCC to occupy the crease first.   UKCCC reversed their batting order, opening with their usual tail-enders, John Shephard and Glen Cunningham, who nevertheless managed to put on 41 runs for the first wicket in just ten overs.   The ploy, however, nearly went astray as these two, Shaun Ainsworth, Joss Hatcher and Gary Primmer all went cheaply to send the total plummeting to 64/5.     This brought Kean Olivero and Steve Cary to the crease and these two recovered the situation for their side, putting on 207 runs for the sixth wicket.   Olivero went when just two runs short of his half century, but Cary, better noted as a bowler, went on to a mammoth 160, thus enabling UKCCC to reach the total of 298/9 at the end of the allotted fifty overs.    For PGCC, skipper Philip Langley returned figures of 3/22.

PGCCC lost wickets regularly and were never in the hunt, as they were bundled out for 113 in 32 overs, Steve Martin taking 3/21 and Hatcher, Ainsworth and Cunningham taking two wickets apiece.   UKCCC went home with 21 points to PGCC’s four.

Next Week.

The domestic programme takes a back seat next week-end as the GCA host the visit of a touring side from France, called the Saumur Strays.   Two matches are scheduled on the Saturday at the Victoria Stadium and on the Sunday at Europa.   Times of start are still to be confirmed.

-TJF.

Twenty Overs Results.

Barbary CC            170            (Kieron Ferrary 35*, Adrian Hewitt 30*, Ross Eatwell 31*)

Barbarians            129/5   (Clive Clinton 34*. Douglas Casciaro 35*)

Barbary won by 41 runs.

Calpe CC    151/9  (Mark Bacarese 30*, Ross Harkins 31*, George Shacaluga 30*,

                                Karan Aswani 31*)

GCC ‘Valverde’    139/7  (Julian Valverde 32*, J Olivero 31*)

Calpe CC won by 12 runs.

* denotes not out.