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Match reports 2007 SATURDAY APRIL 21st 2007 LJUBLJANA CC vs MUNICH CC at Valburga The first match of 2007 saw the Ljubljana debuts of Kaushik Thanki, Sanjay and the first appearance of Johnny Reja at Valburga. Ljubljana bowled first and conceded 228 for 7 off their 40 overs. Sanjay with 2 for 37 had the pick of the bowling figures, but Brad Eve 2 for 38, Kaushik 1 for 37 and "Birthday Boy" Dave Ibbotson 1 for 42 also got among the wickets. Rob Howland and Johnny Reja actually bowled very well but went unrewarded in the wicket stakes. 228 was always going to be a big ask to chase down and after a particularly difficult first 10 overs we were only about 0 for 28. Soon after, however our batsmen began playing more shots and some "rusty" Munich bowling added a few wides to the total. Although Johnny Reja got 36 and another 6 Ljubljana players got beween 10 and 20, alas it wasn't enough to win the game. It is always fun to play cricket on a glorious sunny Valburga day with the boys from Munich and we hope they enjoyed themselves as much as we did.
FRIDAY APRIL 27th 2007 LJUBLJANA CC vs FLASHMAN CC at Valburga As Friday was a public holiday, we hosted a game of cricket against Flashman CC from the UK in 2 matches. One was a 20/20 match and the 2nd a 15 overs a side match Steve Fish took the captaincy job for the weekend and watched us bat first and score 117 off our allotted 20 overs. Robi Jakofčič top scored with 27 runs (including 4 fours and a six), Rob Crawford got 18 and Tom Furness got 15. We mamaged to dismiss the Flashman batsmen and register our first win of the year. Bowling highlights included Dave ibbotson 3 fot 25, Robi Posl 2 for 20, Brad Eve 2 for 1, Uroš and Robi Jakofčič also claimed wickets. The 2nd match was a closer affair with the Flashman batsmen scoreing 105 of the 15 overs (Uroš Jakofčič 3 for 25, Rob Crawford 2 for 8, Robi Posl 2 for 26). After losing the wickets of Tom Furness 39 and Egon Jakofčič 18 in the final over, young Uroš had the job of trying to hit the winning run of the last 2 balls. He only needed one and as it raced for four his trademark celebration could be seen once more. 2 games, 2 wins and a good day for all.
Scorecard for game 1 here Scorecard for game 2 here
SATURDAY APRIL 28th and SUNDAY APRIL 29th 2007 LJUBLJANA CC vs MILTON CC at Valburga Milton CC from Oxfordshire were our next opponents of the long weekend. Saturday's match saw them batting first and scoring a respectable 188 off 40 overs. Brad Eve 4 for 18, Dave Ibbotson 3 for 61, one wicket each to Rob Crawford and a first club wicket for Johnny Reja. Batting we could only make 148 in reply so we lost by 40 runs. Tom Furness scoring 50, Rob Crawford 37 and Brad Eve 31 being the only 3 to reach double figures. Debutant Roman Garbas avoided the infamous "duck on debut club" with a competant 3 runs, quite good for someone who had never played any cricket before. Sunday was our chance for revenge and produced an absolute thriller of a match. Milton scored 206 for 8 in an innings filled with some lovely hitting (Rob Crawford 3 for 31, (guest player) Colin Houseman 2 for 36 and one wicket each to Dave Ibbotson, Borut Čegovnik and Brad Eve the bowling highlights) We chased the score aggressively and needed 14 of the last over to win. We managed to finish only a couple of runs short, but in the final over Tom Furness cut a ball all the way to the fence to bring his debut century (and only the third for the club). His innings included 6 fours and 4 huge sixes (2 arriving off consecutive deliveries) Amam blasted a rapid 22 at the start of the innings and Steve Fish hit 18 (including another mighty 6). Mike Gregory played a superb anchor role with Tom in a partnership of 87 runs and can not be judged on his run count alone (13) as it was a very clever innings. All told a terrific match and great to see a Ljubljana century hit on home soil.
Saturday Scorecard here Sunday Scorecard here SATURDAY 26th MAY LJUBLJANA CC vs VIENNA LIONS CC at Velden 2007 Ljubljana due to a combination of unfortunate events went to Velden with only 9 players (3 of them having a combined match experience of 1 game). Needless to say, it was always going to be hard work against the reigning champions of the Austrian League. Losing the toss was the next unfortunate event as VLCC decided to bat to get some practice in. They scored a few runs 603 for 7 in fact. Ljubljana scored 87 in reply. Steve Fish hit a huge 6. Other highlights are already forgotten in this pointless, demoralizing and thrashing. However although our boys lost, we managed to pick up 2 points, so from now on this game will be known only as the "12 point loss." As an interesting postscript, Ljubljana won its next match and the Vienna Lions CC lost their next. Scorecard here SATURDAY 23rd JUNE 2007 LJUBLJANA CC vs PAKISTAN UNITED CC at Markomanenstrasse, Vienna.
This time, for once, no t-shirts
with "We went to the heart of the Habsburg Empire and all we got
were two mighty thrashings and a lousy hangover" written on. The fielding was ridiculously good. Crawf diving full length to take a caught-and-bowled was the obvious highlight; Lalantha diving full length and getting hands to, and very nearly holding, a rocket through the covers summed it up. It was amazing. Talk about turning back the years. Pak Utd 167 all out.
Our reply opened with a partnership learned at the feet of such great masters as Boycott and Tavarč. After that, with concern mounting on the sidelines vis-a-vis the number of runs per over the normally-unreliable middle and lower orders might be asked to harvest, a splendid 58-run Furness-Davies partnership put us back in the box seat. Then there was a ticking over of the scoreboard hand-in-hand with a steady decline in the number of wickets remaining. We were 8 down, nearly 30 runs short, Mayland, Green and newcomer Roman Garbas left to bat. More than a run a ball needed. Hmmm. Cometh the hour, cometh the splendid 9th wicket heroics. Al and Steve stuck at it. A few runs here and there. Then the 48th over accrued 10 runs, including a lofted drive back past the bowler for 4 and a perilous (suicidal, you may say) bye ran to the keeper which then yielded another run via an overthrow. The bowling remained good but the fielding showed signs of panic. A few more off the 49th left us needing 3 to win off the last over. Two were scored, leaving us at least tied, when Steve was out lbw off the 4th ball. Al tried in vain to persuade the umpire that as the batsmen had crossed before his finger had gone up so he should be on strike. So it was that Roman came to the crease with the match in his hands. Two balls left. Al’s pertinent advice was to “get bat on it like you do in training, then if you hear me yelling ‘YES!!!’ run like **ck to the other end”. So it was that Pak Utd’s opening bowler was pushed into the offside, Al, who’d started running as the ball had been released, yelled “YES!!!”, and Roman did indeed run like **ck to the other end, and the celebrations commenced. Phew.
Scorecard here SUNDAY 24th JUNE 2007 LJUBLJANA CC vs UNITED NATIONS CC at Seebarn, Vienna. Off we went to Seebarn for day two and the game against United Nations. Not that much to say about it, really. Your gallant but elderly, overweight warriors had too little left in the tank to mount a serious challenge. We looked at one point like getting 200+, perhaps as many as 250, after Mark and Rob had got us off to a decent enough start and Mark and Tom were looking to push it along a bit in the middle of the innings. Thenceforth, unfortunately, there was a regular clatter of wickets and we only managed 148. Fielding in the usual Seebarn heat was a nightmare and UN got there before the end of the 25th over to take a maximum 14 points. Ah well. The weekend, our 10th birthday party, will be remembered for a) us taking a squad of 13 to Vienna rather than the usual 9; and b) the magnificent, thrilling, hauling-ourselves-out-of-a-hole-of-our-own-digging victory on the Saturday.
Scorecard here
SUNDAY 1st JULY 2007 LJUBLJANA CC vs SALZBURG CC at Velden Salzburg batted first and got to 107-2 by the first drinks break. Oh, lordy, here we go again. But no. Your beloved aged overweight superstars, who've recently rediscovered useful things such as how to get 11 blokes to the ground in addition to how to bat, bowl and field, fought back marvellously, removing both of their "set" batsmen in the 18th over. Then there was a steady caltter of wickets via some good bowling and injudicious shots and we kept them to 215 all out. Plaudits to all as a great team effort. Urban Blaznik and Lalantha in particular were responsible for a great 2nd session with the ball (a session where we have recently found ourselves haemorrhaging runs regularly after promising starts). In addition to this, Steve Mayland is in the form of his life, Mark Oman removed a batsman with one of the greatest 3 ball tortures we have ever seen and Brad Eve grabbed another opener with his new "special" ball. So now let's cut to our chase.. You may find it hard to believe, but next there was a 177 run opening partnership. Yes there was. By Ljubljana In only 36 overs. Well done Mark Oman (69 not out) and Rob Crawford (67). Wonderful. Salzburg were a bit of a rabble, to be honest, with heaps of wides and overthrows to supplement the excellent aggressive batting. After that, we did our best tp make it an exciting game, losing 5 wickets for the addition of 9 more runs, but once again, as seems to be his speciality, Steve Mayland came up trumps with 3 quick boundaries to help Mark see us home. Father and son combination Rudi and Jan Lasnik added to Jaša Zidar and Roman Garbas as genuine local talent making their Austrian League debuts this year. We had 4 players on this team who had seen cricket for the first time in their lives in Slovenia. And we got 13 points. Blimey.
Scorecard here
SATURDAY
7th JULY 2007 LJUBLJANA CC vs
LORDS CC at Velden
Coming into this match in 2nd position on the
table and after a good practice session on Thursday,
expectations were high. However some bad news was received the
night before the match that 2 of our XI would not be able to
play. Frantic early morning phone calls managed to rustle up one
extra player, but it is extremely difficult to win without a
full team.
So on another cloudless hot day at Velden we
were sent into bat with the new combination of Steve Fish and
Lalantha. Steve Fish manged to hit a couple of nice fours but
after they were both dismissed and 3 more after them, we were 5
for 40 in the 15th over.
That brought Dave Ibbotson to the crease at
number 7. Number 7 on 7/7/2007 was always going to be an
interesting figure for superstitious cricketers. It proved to be
the case today with Dave suddenly clipping legside 6s and
guiding late cuts to the boudary for four. Soon he had brought
up his first 50 and had racked up a partnership of 90 with Rob
Crawford - A new club record for the 6th wicket. This was Rob's
2nd club record partnership in 7 days - well done. Eventually
Ljubljana finished on 151, which was a good comeback after a
disastrous start.
We would have to take lots of early wickets if
we wanted to put any pressure on the Lords batsmen. Brad Eve and
Rudi Lasnik (on bowling debut) bowled well but without any
reward until wily captain Al Green swapped Brad Eve into bowling
with the wind, where he grabbed two wickets (one courtesy of a
fine Tom Furness catch at 2nd slip), but the Lords batsmen never
really had much trouble in overhauling out total.
Today was Dave Ibbotson's
day. Here, an action shot from his 50
Dave and Rob pose after
breaking the club record 6th wicket partnership (90)
Al Green wanders up for a
chat with Rob Crawford between overs.
A shot of the crowd watching
history in the middle
Jan Lasnik batting in his
debut innings. He didn't join the duck on debut club, but
his father Rudi did.
One of the traditions of our
club is the post match analaysis on the way back to
Ljubljana. OK beer and food have something to do with it
too. |
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