Rochdale Premier Cricket League Round Up

Iftikhar of Baba XI receiving Man of the match award from M Siddique of RSCL

4 More Image(s) In Gallery

In week 14 there was an upset at the top of the league, with mid-table Unique inflicting another defeat on RYCC. With this defeat, RYCC have lost their two point lead at the top, and are now joint leaders with Max XI, both on 22 points. Stoney Stars and Baba XI also kept their winning run going with both of these teams now on 18 points and fighting for second position.

The first match of the day was between RYCC and Unique, with RYCC winning the toss and electing to bat. RYCC saw an excellent start, with their top three batsmen scoring runs. Shakeel made 31(not out), Irfan 24 and Siddique 31 (not out) and RYCC finished strong with some good tail-end hitting from Naeem with 12 (not out), leaving them with 125 runs from 8 overs and RYCC seemingly firmly in the driving seat. Unique responded to RYCC’s high total well, with all of their batsmen contributing. With Munawar scoring 23, Saleem 19, Asif 19, Afridi 17 and Shoail 9, Unique needed 30 runs in the last 2 overs to win. At this late stage, the game was still in RYCC’s hands. RYCC Captain M Siddique decided to bowl the penultimate over but was unable to control his bowling and gave away 31 runs in 5 balls and lost the match. Unique’s Munawar was declared man of the match for his 23 runs and bowling figures of 2 for 26.

The second match of the day was between All Stars and Max XI. With All Stars failing to turn up, the two points were awarded to Max XI, and with two easy points in their pocket, they joined RYCC at the top of the league with 22 points.

The next match was between Stoney Stars and Lahore Greens, with this being a must- win game for the Stars, in order for them to stay in the title race. The Stars won the toss and elected to bat. They enjoyed a very good start from their openers, with Sajad Khan scoring 13 runs and Rauf 22 runs, and then had further joy with 27 runs from Salif and 20 runs (not out) from Atar. The Stars overall managed to score 122 runs due to 37 extras given by the Lahore Green bowlers. Lahore Greens had a good opening partnership with Ashfaq scoring 30 runs (not out) and Amjad 26 runs, but none of their lower order batsmen scored any runs, which awarded a 36 run victory to the Stoney Stars. The Stars’ Sakib was given the man of the match for his excellent over and last wicket partnership with Atar.

The final match of the day was played out between Rochdalians and Baba XI. Rochdalians won the toss and elected to bat first. The Rochdalians’ openers had a strong first few overs, with Faisal scoring 31 (not out) and Hameed 35 (not out). But their positive start could not be capitalised upon by the rest of the batting order with none of the other batsmen contributing much to the total. Rochdalians managed 130 runs mainly thanks to a large number of extra (39) given by Baba’s bowlers.
Baba XI responded well, with all of their batsmen scoring well, with Dastghir getting 30 (not out), Iftikhar 31 (not out), Shakeel 28 (not out) and Tayyab 21. With this strong batting performance, Baba XI eventually won the match by 7 wickets with 3 balls to spare. Iftikar was given man of the match for his excellent 31 runs and bowling figures of 1 for 22. With this win, Baba XI climbed up to joint second place with Stoney Stars with 18 points each, keeping them still in with a shout of a late charge for the title.

Next week’s fixtures will be the penultimate for the Rochdale Premier Cricket League and will be very crucial for the top 4 teams in determining who will be sitting at the top of the standings at the end of the season, and who will be crowned RPCL champions.