Cows take series lead after nail-biting comeback victory
The Thalang Cows pulled off a remarkable 1-run victory at the ACG on Sunday (Mar 13) to bowl out the Patong Penguins for 195 in the final over of 25 after the Penguins sailed to 104-1 inside 10 overs.
Opening the batting for the Cows, Ashan Fonseka and Michael Flowers were troubled early on by the bowling of Jason Robertson and Anoop Kotwale before the latter claimed the big wicket of Fonseka 4 (12).
Flowers 13 (20) didn’t last much longer as he was caught by Shivam Sachdeva, leaving Cows captain Joe Ninan and inform Mayur Deuskar in the middle.
The pair did a terrific job to add 103 runs before Ninan 73 (57) was caught and bowled by Robertson.
Sameer Kahn 18 (13) joined Deuskar 66 (47) as the Cows finished the innings on 196-5 with Seemant Raju picking up the late wickets of Deuskar and Kahn.
Despite posting a competitive score, the Cows faced a near impossible task of defending the runs after only eight Cows had arrived to play.
However, Anthony Van Blerk 5 (6) soon fell to Sami Pir, bringing the Sadarangani cousins to the crease who put together an 89-run partnership in no time, thanks largely in part to a diabolical Flowers over which went for 26 and included 7 wides and a no-ball.
This prompted Ninan to make an inspired change, installing Flowers as wicket keeper as Rishi goaded with “are you ready?” before being caught by Pir at long off.
Manish 20 (29) fell to Fonseka in the very next ball, bringing Craig ‘Pancake’ Morgan to the crease who, despite hitting a 6 off his first ball, was soon bowled by Kahn for 6 (3).
Shilash Sharma 14 (24) and Raju posted a partnership of 28 and Livermore joined Raju for 37-run partnership before a peach of a delivery from Fonseka dismissed him.
After 8 runs from the penultimate over, the Penguins needed just 3 to win from the final over. A single from the first ball of the Deuskar over to Kotwale 2 (7) brought Raju 35* (39) on strike with 2 runs required to win from 5 balls.
Raju hit the ball to Kahn at cover with Kotwale at the non-strikers end setting off for the run only to be sent back to watch Deuskar remove the bails for the most unlikely, thrilling, 1-run victory going to the Cows!
Cows Captain Ninan was judged to be the MVP by the scoring application for his batting performance slightly ahead of an equally worthy Deuskar. Fonseka’s incredible fast bowling performance was also highly notable.
The result means the Cows now lead the 6-game PenCow Cup 2-1.