Danubian Kangaroos won by 2 runs
On a beautiful day in sunbaked Dunabogdány, the second season of the Hungarian Cricket League got underway. Two new teams faced off against each other, with Benjamin Lebor’s Phoenix CC hosting the all-Hungarian Danubian Kangaroos.
Phoenix won the toss and put the Kangaroos into bat. The visitors started slowly and shakily slumping to 19 for 3, thanks to some fine bowling from Shobhit Gupta and Gordon Kennedy. The fourth wicket partnership between opener Gábor Murlasits and captain Gábor Török lifted the Kangaroos out of trouble, with the pair nicely mixing dour defence and good shot selection. By the time Murlasits retired hurt with a knee strain, and Gábor Török finally fell LBW for 44, the Kangaroos had leaped over the 100 mark. Phoenix quickly took back the ascendancy though with some fine bowling from Ranjit Kumar and Andrew Smith, and a needless run-out. The Kangaroos finished on 144-9 off their alloted 25 overs.
The second innings was a see-saw battle all the way through, with the early loss of Sperling and Chapman being counter-balanced by some lusty blows by Aneyas Moghe. The classy partnership between captain Benjamin Lebor and Shobhit Gupta seemed to take the game away from the Kangaroos until Viktor Ágoston removed the opposing captain LBW, and then ran out Joe Armstrong with a fine throw from the deep. When the Török brothers combined to remove Shobhit Gupta by enducing and capturing a sky-high catch, the ledger suddenly favoured the all-Hungarian team again. Gordon Kennedy had other thoughts, despatching the bowling to and over the boundary at will, and Phoenix were cruising towards victory until Gabor Török bowled out the big-hitting Englishman. The home side was then quickly reduced to 115-9 before the last-wicket pairing of Sameer Constentor and Ranjit Kumar comfortably ate away at the target. It went down to the wire, and all seemed lost for the Kangaroos until Ferenc Zsigri’s delivery flew in the air to Balázs Nagy, who didn’t disappoint with an ice-cool catch.
The Kangaroos had unexpectedly leaped to the top of the HCL table after the nail biter, which was incidentally played in a wonderful spirit.
Man of the match: Gabor Torok
