Formosa Cricket Club (FCC) cruised to victory over Taiwan Southerners Cricket Club (TSCC) in the final of the Cauldron Cup in Taichung on Sunday.
Set a total of 126 for victory at the Wansho Baseball Stadium, FCC knocked off the runs with more than three overs to spare.
After winning the toss and deciding to bat, the Southerners failed to take advantage as some tidy bowling from FCC’s Andre de Klerk and Saleem Si tied down openers Duane Christie and Mike Maslin, with just 14 runs coming off the first four overs.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARY MULLAN
Worse was to follow in the fifth as Henry Nothnagel bagged the wicket of Christie, caught behind by Paul Turner for four. Captain Andrew Carrick knocked the first boundary of the innings off the last ball of the over.
More good bowling from Nothnagel two overs later saw Carrick nick one behind to fall for seven, while Kassiv Mansor was run out off the last ball, leaving the Southerners in trouble at 29 for 3 off seven overs.
TSCC finally began to pick up the pace in the 12th over when Jared Painter hit three fours off the first three balls, while Maslin brought up his 50 one over later with another couple quick boundaries.
Painter and Maslin then bought up the 100 off the last ball of the 15th over before FCC captain Charl Esterhuizen stopped TSCC in their tracks with two quick wickets, bowling Painter and Tony Sheikh off successive deliveries.
A big six by Will Stowers and another boundary from Maslin (63 not out) then saw out the innings, but TSCC would live to regret their slow start as they finished with just 125 for five off their 18 overs
So often in sport a missed opportunity can be a turning point, and so it proved when the Southerners missed a simple chance to run out star batsman Esterhuizen off the first ball of FCC’s innings.
That mistake proved to be their undoing as Esterhuizen and Turner then took advantage of some poor early bowling to give FCC an early grip on the game, bringing up the 50 in the fifth over.
Some tight spin by guest player Kashif Syed briefly stemmed the tide and when Johan Nel yorked Turner for 22 with a lovely slower ball in the eighth over with the score at 67 for 1, TSCC were in with a chance.
But they could not capitalize as more slack bowling saw FCC race to three figures in the 11th over.
By the time Esterhuizen was finally out in the 13th over — caught on the boundary for 75 by Richard Rankine off Painter with the score at 117 — the result was no longer in doubt.
It was left to Paul Spencer to cut the third ball of the 14th over to the boundary for the winning runs, giving FCC yet another trophy and capping another successful weekend’s cricket.
The weekend’s round-robin stages saw the Taipei Cricket Association finish in third place (W1, L2), while the Taiwan Indian Cricket Club finished last (W0, L3).
This tournament could be the last one of the year as plans for a final competition next month seem to have been scuppered by Taichung officials who double-booked the ground. The search for a new venue continues.
Anyone interested in joining one of the clubs, please contact:
FCC: Charl Esterhuizen, 09-1735-1749. TSCC: Andrew Carrick, 09-1955-7896. Pakistan Cricket Club Taiwan: Amjad Zafar, 09-2022-1793.
Barcelona star Lamine Yamal would be motivated by criticism ahead of the Clasico, Barcelona assistant coach Marcus Sorg said yesterday. Teenage winger Yamal has been in the spotlight in the Spanish capital after joking that Real Madrid “steal” and “complain” during an appearance on a social media stream. Champions Barca face Real Madrid today in La Liga at the Santiago Bernabeu, looking for a fifth consecutive win over their rivals. “Lamine is a top player and I think [the criticism] will be motivating for him,” Sorg told a news conference. “I hope we all see him tomorrow [give] the best performance.” The 18-year-old Spain
‘A HISTORIC moment’: ‘I think we all need to take a step back and appreciate Leo Messi is playing in Major League Soccer,’ league commissioner Don Garber said Lionel Messi raised the Golden Boot. He then got Inter Miami started with his head. The Argentine opened the scoring with a diving header in the first half, then capped the scoring in the 96th minute as Inter Miami opened the MLS playoffs with a 3-1 win over Nashville SC in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference best-of-three first-round series on Friday night. Messi and Ian Fray had the assists on Tadeo Allende’s second-half tally for Inter Miami, who now get two chances to advance out of the first round for the first time in Messi’s two-and-a-half-year tenure with the team. Game
‘COMPLETE GAME’: ‘To be honest, I’m not sure about the history, but I’m very happy about what I did today,’ Yamamoto said through a translator after the game Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a World Series game from another era. Sandy Koufax had October outings like this, and so did Orel Hershiser, but those types of performances have vanished in modern baseball. Until this 178cm starter from Japan delivered like the aces of old. Yamamoto threw a four-hitter for his second consecutive complete game, the first in the World Series since 2015, and the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-1 on Saturday night to tie their best-of-seven matchup at one game apiece. “It’s kind of the throwback,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “When he starts a game, he
Japan’s narrow defeat by Australia showed they can compete with the best teams in the world, coach Eddie Jones said after his side fell to a 19-15 loss yesterday. Australia coach Joe Schmidt led the Wallabies for the first time against Eddie Jones, his predecessor and now Japan coach. During Jones’ second tenure as Australia coach, the Wallabies lost seven of nine tests and were eliminated in group play at the 2023 World Cup. “What I’m super pleased about is that now we [Japan] are a team that stays in the fight,” Jones told reporters. “We kept going, we could have won
RSS