SCCG®: Play Green, Play for our Future

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On 19/09/2020, the SCCG (Grosuplje) played against the Semifinalists Kranj CC at valburga, near Ljubjana Slovenia. The Kranj CC captain Tomaz won the toss and elected to bat first.

The captain Adil and Sherzad bowled again with considerable pace and at the right lengths to give the SCCG a really nice start. However, Tahir of Kranj CC was also looking in fine form and was comfortable with ones and twos and scored some boundaries within the power play. The first breakthrough for SCCG came in the form of Tarun, who was bowled out by Sherzad in his first over. Raman came to the crease and along with Tahir, they set up a good partnership of well over 90 runs for the second wicket. Tahir left the pitch with a good knock of 36 off 39 balls when he was caught off Waqas by Adil at midon. Raman however, looked in considerable form and he went on to score 89 off just 57 balls. The highest run scorer in the SLT20, Aqeel, came to bat at number 4, but managed only a boundary and a maximum and was bowled over by Sherzad again for 15 runs. Raman stayed put and was in no mood to leave the pitch, and built a partnership of 20 odd runs with Bhagwant, with him scoring almost all 20 runs until he was caught off Sherzad by Jimmy at the long on position. The Kranj managed to put up a large total of 183 for 6 wickets in the allotted overs. Sherzad scalped 3 wickets while waqas, shyam and jimmy a wicket each for the SCCG.

With a target of 184 in 20 overs, the SCCG openers Vikram and Jimmy started off explosively at a run rate of almost 12 per over with Jimmy scoring a boundary of every other ball. Vikram calmly rotated the strike sensibly while jimmy was hitting the ball around the park. Unfortunately, a top edge off jimmy’s bat put an early end to his innings at 41 of just 18 balls and he was caught by the keeper off a delivery by Hotak. Karthik stepped in number 3, and Vikram had now taken up the role of hard hitting, while Karthik just rotated the strike. Both batsmen stick to the plan of putting away the bad balls while scoring ones and twos off the good ones, and were looking in considerable touch. Raman brought spin in to the attack later in the Kranj CC bowling innings and did a magnificient job of stopping the constant run flow. However, with a partnership of 141 off 94 balls, Vikram and Karthik managed to chase down the target for SCCG with 14 balls and 9 wickets remaining. Vikram scored a wonderful 80* in mere 52 balls while Karthik scored 54* in 37 balls finishing the run chase with a six.

The SCCG (Grosuplje) were through in to the finals of the Slovenian T20 League, where they will play Mezica CC again, but in the Valburga Cricket Ground on 3/10/2020.