French monsoon hits Luxembourg
A new-look French side, featuring four debutants and five changes from the team that registered a 3-0 series win in Morocco earlier in the month, made short work of Luxembourg on 26 April at a wet, windy Walferdange ground on the picturesque banks of the River Alzette.
In an ODI reduced to 45 overs because of the weather, France ran out 119-run winners, coasting to 243-7 before restricting the hosts to 124-7. After six weeks with hardly a cloud in the Grand Duchy sky, the first international, scheduled for the previous day, had been washed out.
Following a wet-tee-shirt warm-up under bouncy new physio Laurence Barbery, concluded by a bout of hand-hockey more akin to water-polo, this dive-happy French side fielded with klinsmannlike zest in quagmire conditions. Clichy's Khalid Abdul and Creil teenager Muhammad Qamar, two Pakistan-born players who have lived in France since infancy, made an impact in the field not beheld since rubber-limbed Chauny youngster Fabrice Bronard burst on the scene at the European championships in Osnabr¸ck seven years ago. Meanwhile Waseem Bhatti, from Aubervilliers, showed some of the smoothest glovework yet seen from a French keeper.
Skipper and former keeper Shabir Hussain continued his Moroccan form with the bat, posting a sparkling 60, and even picked up a wicket with his cunningly flit offspin. All ten French fielders bowled, only James 'Ulysses' Grant, who hurled down the game's final over, in the joke category -- an assessment almost shaken when a raucous LBW shout off the penultimate ball provoked a rare Grant war-dance accompanied by whoops of joy... transformed into howls of anguish as impassive Umpire Crowther declined to scalp the padprodding paleface in Grant's line of fire. Showing a cool sense of anti-climax, Grant promptly delivered a wide off what should have been the last ball of the game.
Shabir's captaincy foible was just about justified by the understandable reluctance of more traditional bowlers to juggle with the pink soap at the end of a shower-sodden afternoon. France bowled remarkably in the conditions, none with more guile than offspinner Sulanga, none with more hostility than bespectacled Pondicherry paceman Prakash Ayyavooraju, who posted 1-10 off 6 and had Luxembourg Head Coach Ben Lyons caught behind off a snorty rib-tickler. Val Brumant and Tahir Mohammad had already killed off the game with the new ball, restricting Luxembourg to 10-1 in the first 10 overs. A flurry of pulls from Luxembourg's David Chapman relieved the strokeless tedium until he was nonchalantly pouched off a towering skier by Valentin Brumant at deep mid-on.
Earlier, France had inaugurated Luxembourg's new astroturf pitch with caution of their own. A score of 34-0 off ten laid a respectable base for later strokemakers, but Sulanga and Saeed, opening in the absence of Gareth Edwards and Arun Ayyavooraju, treated a diet of long-hops and legside half-volleys as if they were spitting cobras suddenly emerging from the dandelion-strewn outfield. Sulanga stuck around for 38, regaining fluency as the venom wore off, but it took Shabir and James Grant (70 from 53 balls) to wield attacking sanity as France, unusually clad in Real Madrid colours, upped the tempo from 75-1 off 20 overs to 131-2 off 30, with 83 coming off the last ten.
Four wins in four by the end of April may be some sort of European international cricket record, but it will need sterner opposition before France can meaningfully claim to be on a roll. This dynamic display, however, suggests that the visit of the more powerful Belgians, to Thoiry in early June, can be faced with confidence.
Arun was busy making his debut for Malvern College at the start of his sponsored summer-term studying cricket at public school. Usefully: 3 wickets and 27 not in a 10-wicket win at Clifton.
`It has been pointed out that the match in question was actually against Luxembourg's Optimists CC, not against the Luxembourg national squad and for a match report on the Optimists site, click here
