Almost for Actonville in Kempton
Actonville Spurs Cricket Club (ASCC) travelled to the Barnard Stadium, for their Eastern Premier League encounter with Kempton Park Cricket Club, on Sunday, March 8.
The team experienced a slump in form recently and were hoping to get one over last season’s champions in their backyard, a team they defeated in December, last year.
Kempton Park skipper Johan Fourie won the toss and put Clayton August’s men in to bat.
Actonville’s wickets fell early until a decent partnership developed between August and Ahmed Mohammed.
August top-scored with 75 runs, but, despite the stand with Mohammed, the other Actonville batsmen could not contribute enough and the team were all out for 122 in the 38th over.
Kempton Park shuffled their batting order around for the chase and this experiment backfired on them, when they found themselves at 15/4 at lunch.
When the teams reemerged after the break, Kempton found themselves at an embarrassing 22/8 until Fourie arrived at the crease, at number 10, and took his team home with a well played 76 not out, to complete a one-wicket victory.
Hossain Shakeel Ahmed has been excellent with the ball this season and he again stood out with the ball for ASCC, with bowling figures of five wickets for 42 runs in nine overs.
A lack of concentration could be to blame for the narrow defeat, when one of the Actonville players discovered, during the match, that his mother’s vehicle had been stolen from the ground when the keys were removed from his bag in the change room.
