Royal Tigers win HCL season opener

The second annual 'Champions vs Best of the Rest' HCL season opener took place on Sunday May 2nd at RAFC. Following last year's narrow defeat, the Royal Tigers arrived clearly determined to overturn that result against this year's best available players from each of the 5 other clubs in the league. The Tigers were comprehensively successful, running out 30 run winners, 245 all out to 215 all out. The match also provided another small piece of history in the growing records of Hungarian cricket, being the first ever 'internal' 40 over match in Hungary.

Winning the toss and choosing to bowl first in the overcast and muggy conditions, the Best of the Rest could have turned this to a real advantage, had they held their catches. No less than 6 dropped catches took any possible advantage away, and the Tigers capitalised on the pre-season gifts, with Amandeep (47), Sameer (40) and Lucky (31) the major contributors to the Tigers large, but in 40 overs not ungettable, total. For the Best of the Rest, the most notable moment of brilliance in the field came from Habib's incredible direct-hit from the boundary to run out the unfortunate Stan.

The Best of the Rest's chase of the total took a blow with Nick's early dismissal, but Eddie and Kaiber put on a steady 45 to bring back some hope, until 2 wickets in 2 runs, including the run out of in-form Ed, brought the beginning of the end for the Best of the Rest. A steady flow of wickets and the Golden Duck of the captain confirmed that this was the day of the Tiger. Haroon's 36 and Suleiman's swashbuckling 24 in a last-wicket partnership of 54 was too little, too late.

Nonetheless, a match of 460 runs (admittedly, more than 100 of them from wides alone!) is a first in Hungary, and a further sign that cricket here is on the way forward. The match was also used as a second fundraising event for our good friend Brett from Austria cricket, for whom a total of 79000Ft cash, plus several private transfers, has been raised. Thank you to all for your support with this, and congratulations to the Royal Tigers on their victory in this year's season opener.

Man of the Match: Lucky Singh. 31 runs and 4 wickets for 36 off 7 overs. Congratulations Lucky!

Scorecard

	Date	2 May 2010			Location					RAFC
	Teams	Royal Tigers			Best of the Rest
	Neutral umpires
	Scorers
	Innings of	Royal Tigers
		c/wk	ho	fielder	bowler	runs	4	6		Bowler	O	M	R	Wk
1	Vasu R.		bowled		A. Leckonby	0	0	0		Suleiman	7	0	34	1
2	Amandeep S.		bowled		Haroon	47	6	0		A. Leckonby	8	0	38	2
3	Marc A.		bowled		Habib	16	2	0		Habib	7	0	22	2
4	Lucky S.		bowled		Salman	31	5	0		Mahesh Singh	5	0	42	1
5	Sameer M.	+	c	Suleiman	Khyber	40	3	3		Haroon	4	0	33	1
6	Tushar G.	*	c	Haroon	Khyber	14	1	1		Shobhit	3	0	28	0
7	Stan A.		run out	Habib		15	2	0		Khyber	4	0	43	2
8	Sanjay		lbw		Mahesh Singh	6	1	0
9	Manish		bowled		A. Leckonby	8	1	0
10	Suman		not out			4	0	0
11	Karim		bowled		Habib	0	0	0
										Bowling Total	38	0	240	9
	Extras	b	9		Total Extras	57
		lb	6							Fall of wickets	1	2	3	4	5
		wi	38		Total	238					2
		nb	4		Wickets	10					6	7	8	9	10
		pen	0		Overs	38
	Innings of	BOR
		c/wk	ho	fielder	bowler	runs	4	6		Bowler	O	M	R	Wk
1	Nick Palmer		c	Sameer	Sanjay	1	0	0		Suman	8	1	35	0
2	Khyber		bowled		Amandeep S.	20	3	0		Sanjay	6	0	24	1
3	Ed Allnutt		run out	Vasu/Sameer		11	2	0		Amandeep S.	5	0	14	2
4	Haroon		c		Tushar G.	36	5	0		Stan A.	3	0	23	0
5	Shobhit		lbw		Lucky S.	2	0	0		Tushar G.	5	0	25	1
6	Mahesh Singh		bowled		Lucky S.	10	0	1		Lucky S.	7	0	36	4
7	B. Le Bor		c	Amandeep S.	Lucky S.	7	0	0		Manish	2	0	14	0
8	A. Leckonby	*	bowled		Lucky S.	0	0	0		Vasu	1	0	8	0
9	S. Anthony	+	run out	Tushar		2	0	0		Karim	1	0	22	0
10	Suleiman		bowled		Amandeep S.	24	2	2						0
11	Habib		not out			12	2	0						0
12										Bowling Total	38	1	201	8
	Extras	b	10		Total Extras	87
		lb	5							Fall of wickets	1	2	3	4	5
		wi	64		Total	212					5	50	51	90	117
		nb	8		Wickets	10					6	7	8	9	10
		pen			Overs	38					146	146	149	161	215
	Result	Winning team			Margin of victory
		ROYAL TIGERS			26?	runs