Sir Ali Muslim Club opened their Nairobi Invitational Cricket League (NICL) 50 Overs on a positive note, beating the T20 losing finalists Ruaraka Sports Club, by nine wickets.
Fielding a relatively different side from the one that went down by four wickets to Kanbis in the final of the T20 tournament two weeks ago, Ruaraka struggled to settle on the wicket before finally being bowled out for 68 runs.
The visitors then took only exactly 10 overs to seal the match. Ugandan Siraje Nsubuga was the chief architect of the hosts' downfall with four wickets.
All seemed to be going well for the hosts at 38 in seven overs before they found themselves at 59 for 5 overs later thanks to some brilliant bowling show from their Ugandan import and some disciplined fielding from almost everyone on the pitch.
Poor was Ruaraka’s batting that apart from the openers, Akash Tambe (20) and Chandresh Hirani, none of the other batsmen was able to hit double digits.
Tarandeep Singh broke the opening stand that turned to be the best of the inning when he trapped Hirani on 23. Sandip Adole made it 42 for 2 and Singh 53 for 3 before Nsubuga opened his account by making it 54 for 4 with the dismissal of P Bhudia in the 17th over.
From there on, wickets fell in quick succession with Nsubuga adding on three more to finish on 4 for 8 in 4.3 overs.
Vishal Kukade was also outstanding with the ball with 3 for 2 in four overs. Singh ended his good opening spell with 2 for 7 in seven overs.
In reply, skipper Gurdeep Singh (20) anchored their team’s chase with 20 off 21 balls. He shared an opening stand of 25 off 5.4 overs with Shabaz Malik before Gurdeep was caught and bowled by Tambe. Adole (38) and Malik wrapped up the match with unbroken second wicket stand of 46 runs in 26 balls. Adole was the brutal in the stand with a six and seven fours in just 14 balls.
