Battle of the Baltics - LCC's Safdar Alam reports
On 28 September, the Latvian Cricket Club visited neighboring Tallinn, Estonia for a friendly against the Estonian Cricket Club. It had been raining in the Estonian capital for a week before the game but, except for the poor condition of the outfield at the Hippodrome, conditions were perfect for cricket on the day of the match.
The teams agreed to play a 30 over match, and after formal introductions and a photo session, the game got under way. The LCC won the toss and without any hesitation elected to bat first. Both LCC openers had a steady start and kept the scoring rate at 4 runs an over for the first 10 overs until eventually LCC's opener Vikram Saran lost his patience and gave an easy catch to the wicket keeper, having made 16 runs. LCC captain Rohit Sood arrived at the crease, increased the run rate and gave the spectators something to enjoy before getting out for 41. Sumit Chakravarty, LCC's most experienced batsman, then piled on the runs with the help of wicket keeper cum opener Samir Singh, taking the score to 150 in 19 overs. Samir was eventually caught behind on 41, and was replaced by Anand, who played some entertaining shots before being caught on the boundary. Deepak Bhandari, the next man in, had a go at the bowlers from the both ends and the LCC's score reached 200. The last overs saw some good and steady bowling from the ECC though it all came too late. Sumit (53), the top scorer for LCC, eventually got run out while taking a risky 2nd run and Deepak (31) got caught behind before the end of the 29th over. The tail enders took the score to 217/7, leaving ECC and its captain Jason Barry the daunting task of scoring 218 runs against LCC's strong bowling line-up.
After the lunch interval, the LCC's bowlers started with some good swing and pace which caused problems for the inexperienced Estonian batting side. ECC's captain Jason gave some resistance before being eventually bowled off the bowling of Safdar. With the loss of ECC's vital wickets, LCC's captain gave all of his players except the wicket keeper a chance to bowl. Thanks to some sloppy fielding and too many extras, the Estonians got their 100 in the last over before being all out on the score of 103. LCC's bowlers performed superbly especially, Animesh (5 wickets), Rohit (1), Safdar (2) and Vijay (1), whilst Sumit and Ajay bowled to a steady line and length. At the end of the game ECC captain thanked the Latvian team for a wonderful display of batting and bowling and hoped that the teams will face each other in the next season on a new cricket ground with better facilities. LCC enjoyed their stay in Tallinn and are looking forward to playing with the regional teams in Riga.
