Royal Tigers won by 19 runs

This match was very important in the context of who would hold pole position in the Premier League before the semi-finals - a win for either side would see them end top of the league. Both the teams knew the importance of the match and the rainy weather prevented the entire match of 30 overs being played, but thanks to the very much appreciated efforts of Andrew Leckonby and Gabor Torok the two teams managed to get a match to play instead of sharing the points, with the match reduced to 20 overs.

Winning the toss, Tigers captain Tushar elected to bat, going on the previous experiences of run chases against Kohinoor had put Tigers in trouble, so Tigers wanted to set a target for Kohinoor.

Sameer went in to open the innings with Parry and the two batsmen set the ball rolling immediately with the pair getting 13 runs off the third over, which included a massive hit out of the ground by Sameer. The two batsmen were going along very steadily and from the first ball off the 4th over Sameer hit the bowler for another huge six. Becoming a bit over-confident, Sameer tried to slog the next delivery but failed to connect with the ball and saw his off-stump uprooted and Tigers lost their 1st wicket with the score reading 28 runs. Sameer had made 17 runs which included his two hits out of the ground and one boundary. With the fall of wicket, in came the in-form batsman Marc Ahuja, whose confidence was soaring very high since he had hit his maiden century in his previous match. Marc and Parry (who hit the best opening partnership of the entire Hungarian league scoring 232 runs together in their previous match) also showed this time in this particular match that they really gelled well together and both the batsmen were playing the Kohinoor bowlers well and hitting the odd balls to the boundary for 4s and 6s, only the difference being that this time it was Parry who took the lead in getting runs and Marc was providing him the full support on the other hand.

Tigers were scoring runs at an average of more than 7 runs per over and the partnership of Marc and Parry had reached 70 runs when Marc tried to hit the spinner Haroun over the mid-on boundary, but failed to clear the fielder and got caught almost 3 yards inside the boundary line for a well-made 22 runs. Tigers were 98 runs for the loss of 2 wickets with another 7 overs to go. In came the Tigers captain Tushar and he also tried to give the maximum strike to Parry who was hitting the ball cleanly all over the ground. Tushar made a quickfire 15 with the help of one six and one four. In the meantime Parry reached his half century and the team cheered. With the score reading 129 runs off 17.1 overs, a beauty from Haroun saw the middle stump of Tushar getting uprooted and in the next 2 deliveries Haroon got his next 2 wickets for Kohinoor and he was the first bowler to take a hat trick this 2009 season in this league. Tigers were crumbling with 129 runs for the loss of 5 wickets after 17 overs. The tail enders did a good job for Tigers, scoring 20 runs off the last three overs with Kiran doing exceptionally well, playing his last match for Tigers since he had announced his retirement from cricket this summer. Tigers put on 149 runs in their allotted 20 overs, setting a competitive target for Kohinoor to get 150 runs at an average of 7.2 runs per over.

Kennedy and Shiraz opened the batting for Kohinoor and both batsmen knew that they had to give Kohinoor a good opening partnership for them to win the match. Shiraz was hitting the ball cleanly and the batsmen put on 19 runs off the first 2 overs in no time. But a brilliant delivery off Suman in the 3rd over struck the middle stump of Shiraz and in the very next over Kennedy also saw his middle stump uprooted off the bowling of Aman and Kohinoor saw their first collapse, with the score reading 21 runs for 2 wickets off 4 overs. The asking rate was building higher and higher for Kohinoor and the Tigers bowlers really were keeping the Kohinoor batsmen under control. Mahesh Singh, playing as a guest player for Tigers, bowled his allotted 2 overs for only 7 runs. Kohinoor required another 100 runs off 11 overs with the score reading 50 off 9 overs. Khyber and Haroon tried to build up a steady partnership and Khyber was playing really well. Haroun gave him good support in their partnership of 40 odd runs for the 4th wicket. Khyber mistimed his shot and gave a skyer to Sameer off Tushar and he had to depart for a well-made 27. The very next over saw the fall of Haroun and Kohinoor still needed 70 runs off the last 7 overs. Habib and Rehan did a splendid job batting well but the pressure was building very high on the batsmen with some good tight bowling by Tushar and Dinesh in the middle overs. Kohinoor reached 130 runs of their allotted 20 overs and they lost the match by 19 runs to Tigers. Rehan remained not out for 34 runs and Habib was not out for 20 runs.

All in all it was a very good match. Parry was unanimously chosen to be the Man of the Match for his magnificent half century. Overall it was a fantastic display of sporting spirits from both the teams and everyone shook hands with each other after the match.

With this win Tigers became the league leaders in the Premier League so far and will now face either Green Kings or Baggy Blues 2nd XI, while Kohinoor ended third and will battle Baggy Blues 1st XI to reach the final.

Man of the Match: Parry