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CCC's season has been a stop-start affair with weather, selection problems and player transfer controversy all contributing to a sluggish story so far. Last night at the Medicals the season finally clicked into gear as they recorded their finest victory for several seasons against table-topping ORPs.
Winning the toss CCC chose to bat in mid 20s temperatures. Immediately they were handed the initiative through wayward bowling from the ORPs openers who sent down a succession of wides. When they did bowl straight they were punished by Welsh Matt - fresh from a century FOR ORPs on saturday - and Nick. Matt was finally dismissed for a fluent 39 from what looked like a bump ball, before two wickets in an over seemed to hand the initiative back to ORPs: first Fiaz clipped one to square leg before Nick was unluckily run out for 29 backing up when Peter's drive clipped the bowler's boot.
Peter (25, out to a sensational one-handed catch at mid on), Simon E (23 not out) and Mudassar (10 not out) batted sensibly and pushed the score to 162-4 from 16 overs.
This was always a tough ask for ORPs despite their attacking line up, and with CCC's pace attack of Matt and Ewan opening well it became more difficult. It turned out to be Ewan's day as he had Jason caught behind in his first over, then followed up with four wickets in his next two overs to finish with 5-24. At this stage CCC were cruising but a succession of dropped catches off ORPs opener Xohaib kept ORPs in the game, and when he took 24 off luckless Guy's third over (which included two drops) CCC got the jitters. thankfully Fiaz stepped up and bowled him for 75 in the next over. This left CCC to play out the game comfortably with Fiaz taking 3-26 as ORPs finished on 142-9.
CCC 9; ORPs 3
Team: Nick (c), Matt P, Fiaz, Peter, Simon E (w/k), Mudassar, John E, Ewan, Ian J, Guy, Matty
Cap: Peter for excellent batting and a fine catch on the midwicket boundary (NB it would have been Ewan but he wasn't at the pub!)
Duck: John Edgar for what would have been a dropped catch if he had got his hands on it (and some scorebox-related banter)
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