Peruvian National Legue Apertura Week One, AKA the Peasouper

Last Sunday 13^th February 2011 saw the recommencement of the Peruvian National League. In this early season league, called the Apertura the four main teams battle out over three weekends for the Chimu Holidays Trophy. LCFC were playing Eidegenossen to defend their unbeaten run in all the league games last year. As usual the game did not start as planned but half an hour late and was quite stopstarty as the ball kept getting lost in the bushes after Clint Donkin kept depositing it there off some pretty wayward bowling by the Eids. Incidentally LCFC had won the toss and decided to bat first. Hodgy was out with the score on 22 so new boys Donkin and Grandjean, both hit about 70 odd, don’t have the stats to hand)set about the bowling, putting on a stand of 140 odd taking the score to 170 when disaster struck. Clint was stumped by the Eids wickey off John Bell’s slow slow bowling. Good technique to use on this pitch with the ball practically stopping when it pitches. Hans was out immediately next ball for a Golden being bowled off another incredibly slow ball. It literally stopped on top of the stumps. Walter was then runout in comical fashion and Champion was yet another victim to Bell’s slow Boa Constrictor like bowling. John Bell must be mentioned in despathces for his bowling , showing the majority of other bowlers how important accuracy is. LCFC scrambled to 180. An adequate score.

In response Eids were none for two in the first over with Hans dismissing the openers very cheaply, bringing Gary ‘workaholic’ Sargent to the crease with Revolving Door Mahoney. Chris has switched teams more times than Nicolas Anelka, good thing he is a jolly nice bloke! Both batsmen were making fairly good headway in the chase which required at least two boundaries an over until Gary holed out to Donkin off Sanfords bowling. Then the pivotal moment of the innings came and it belonged to LCFC’s youngest player Sebastian. Sebastian failed to grab hold of a catch by Ravi but the batsmen decided on a suicidal single. Seb quickly picked up and flung in to Jorge who ran out Mahoney with some aplomb, who it has to be said was the danger batsman for the Fellowship team. Nick the new English teacher from Cambridge then tried to give Eids some credit batting with Ravi until Ravi was stumped by Jorge again off Walter’s bowling. And although Eids managed to only lose by ten runs due to some pretty wayward bowling in the back ten by LCFC the result was never really in doubt. Hans and Louis came back at the end to shore up the runs. Tony was the pick of the bowling for LCFC, bowling neatly taking a couple of wickets and not giving too much up in way of boundaries. A satisfactory but slightly untidy result for LCFC. Kiteflyers next weekend.. Below is the match report for the second match as provided by the exLCFC player Ed Baxter, now skipper of Kiteflyers. Interestingly two of the three players to leave LCFC last year are now captaining their respective teams. And Derek Jones has gone onto Head a school in Doha. Make of that what you will.

An ominous wisp of fog blowing across Lima Cricket Club on Sunday preceded the much anticipated Kiteflyers vs. Chak De Cricket extravaganza which was to bear witness to one of the best team batting performances (or worst bowling performances) the 20-20 tournaments have seen. It was a game that was played in good spirits and was notable for a number of debuts and enthusiasm on both sides.

2 o’clock, the proposed starting time came and Chak De were ready in their whites sat in a beautiful team building circle with Vish in a ridiculously good mood as always (always a bad sign for the opposition) and cackling away over the 3 different batting orders they had. As for the Kiteflyers team 4 of us were there, with one standing around in pants not sure whether to actually bother getting changed or not in case the rest of the team didn’t turn up. As it turns out they were in the bar and shuffled over for the eventual 2:30 start.

Manfully taking to the field with 10 players, (I bet you can guess who didn’t show up), the Kiteflyers first over went for about 8 runs. As it turns out that was probably the lowest scoring over of the innings as Chak De piled on the runs amassing a ridiculous 248 for about 6 off their 20 overs. It was however strangely enough, a reasonably enjoyable experience for most of the Kiteflyers many of whom got a chance to bowl. There were some great batting performances, top scorer was Suresh I think with around 50 and lots of other players chipped in here and there. Particularly memorable was the 3 fours he hit in a row of one utterly rubbish Baxter over. E. Xtra got his top score of all time I would imagine too.

Jimmy on his debut deserves a mention as he got 2 wickets in his one over of er, 12 balls I think. One of the balls was so cr@p however it wasn’t even allowed to be called a wide. Anyway he should be congratulated for getting Vish out on his full debut. In other comedy moments Dave Sharples bowled the best ball of the day (a dot), fell over and then turned to be relieved that his girlfriend and dad were still having lunch by the swimming pool.

The mist continued to roll in and the Kiteflyers took some great catches and strangely for the score actually fielded quite well. Gerhard must be mentioned for the fine catch he took near the start of the innings.

After a quick turnaround Abbott and Nick were sent in to chase the small matter of 12.4 runs an over. They started pretty well hitting a couple of lusty blows for four but then Chak De started to turn the screw, bringing an LBW appeal straight off the middle of Abbott’s bat. Needless to say that went down well with the batsman and wickets began to fall. Nick somehow hit the ball behind him to be caught by Kash and the batting order began to disintegrate. Lovely shots included a meaty six by Gav over mid-off and a Dave Sharples four courtesy of Anish’s foot (or knee) which was actually 20m from the boundary at point of contact.

Some good blocking by the lower order kept Chak De at bay until the 14^th over and the Kiteflyers were eventually all out for around 80. After the last shrieking huddle of the day by Chak De it was time to retire to the bar and strangely enough the mist by now had begun to recede...