Nothing to split Island and Conquerors in a tie

Victoria Park Community Cricket League

THE good form of Caledonian Conquerors has continued following last week's first win over league powerhouses Sky for the first time in five years.

This week, Conquerors have forced their way into the League Cup final, courtesy of a seven wicket win over Contenders and played a thrilling tie with Island Community Centre.

In their cup semi, Conquerors opted to field after winning the toss and made it very difficult for their opponents with some tidy bowling and sharp fielding.

Only Dee Alexander flourished for Contenders,but once he retired having past his 50, the rest of the batting failed to extend Conquerors.

Only two late sixes in the final over of the innings enabled Contenders to post a reasonable 123-4 from their 16 overs, Waqar Ali taking 2-27.

The run chase was excellently timed by Conquerors' Mohammed brothers - Fazal; and Nadeem - who picked up where they had left off last week and were both unbeaten at the end, taking their side to 124 without loss, Fazal finishing 51 not out and Nadeem contributing an unbeaten 41 as Conquerors swept into the final on the back of a seven wicket win.

It was much tougher as Island Community, fellow contenders with Conquerors for the runners-up spot in the top division this season, met.

They began the fixture on equal points and at the end of the game there was literally nothing to separate them.

Conquerors took first knock and made a solid start, but some good Island bowling and some impressive changes saw them pegged back to a score of 154-5, Amir Khan top scoring with 43.

Island Community lost two quick wickets in their replay, but some clean hitting by Jack Stollery and Mo Rahman always kept their side in the game.

They went into the final three overs requiring 37 and despatched 18 off the 14th over, an onslaught which seemed to have put them in sight of victory.

Eight were taken off the penultimate over leaving 11 for victory. Rahman reduced this to three from as many balls at the end of the over. Going for two for victory off the final ball, Island scrambled one, but were run out on the second, leaving the game tied and a credit to both teams!

Sky improved their Div 1 position with a six wicket win over London Tigers, who were bracketed on the same points as last season's runners-up.

Tigers opted to bat first and made a very modest 113-6 from their overs, Ruhel (34) and Rasel (31) top scoring, with Sky's Salim Aldo taking 3-25.

Sky had little trouble in making the target, Shakeel Durrani scoring an unbeaten 50 and Javed Soomro 34 as they cruised to victory.

Division 3's bottom side Wrong' Uns had their first success of the second phase when they scored a 14 run victory over fellow strugglers Old Fallopians.

Wrong' Uns' 111-4 might not have looked enough, Terry Rowan providing 50 of them, but some fine bowling by Adam Daniels (3-13) proved key, while Fallopians' AK Southey didn't bat until six and although he scored a very quickly compiled 46 he succumbed to the first ball of the last over with Fallopians' still short of victory.

In Division 4, Homerton's Chats Palace inflicted Tufnell Parkians's third defeat of the second phase with a three wicket victory.

Parkians were restricted to 80-7 even though they elected to bat, having found Chats Palace's good swing bowling hard to contain.

Chats eased past the lowly target with 84-4, John Saunders-Griffiths (22) top scoring for a win that puts them into contention for the divisional title.

In the same section, Old Ranwellians scored their second successive win with a six wicket beating of Martians.

Martians were put in and made 99-7 in 14.5 overs, skipper Ed Greening making it hard for them with a useful spell of 3-12.

Ranwellians lost one wicket in making the target, Jim Eaton bowled by a full toss. Alex Hudson was unbeaten on 43 as they also capitalised on a massive 35 extras given away by some slack work by Martians.