Pirbright vs Frimley Green Cricket Club - Sunday 19th July 2026, 13:30

We won the toss and obviously chose to bat first. With FIFA WC 2026 later in the evening, the opposition requested a shorter 35 over game. Amit and Kumar opened in style with Amit smacking a four in first ball, clearly signalling he had no intention of running today. Kumar joined the fun with his own four. After a few “let’s pretend we’re cautious” overs, Amit got a beautiful in-swinger that rearranged his plans for the day. Rasheed walked in and started settling with Kumar, until Kumar also left in the ninth over. Shiv joined Rasheed, and together they decided, “No more wickets. Enough charity.” They started building their partnership. Boundaries began flowing from both players, both reached their fifties within few balls of each other, and the frustration levels in the field were rising faster than the run rate. Rasheed and Shiv were eyeing the record for longest partnership, but destiny had other plans. After a lovely 155 run partnership, Shiv departed in the 30th over. Enter Swaroop. Normally a Test specialist, he activated full T20 mode as only 5 overs were left. No warm-up, no settling, just straight-up smashing. Meanwhile Rasheed was inching toward his century. In the final over, he reached 94 and hit a shot that looked like a boundary but wasn’t. He ran three. Everyone screamed “STOP!” after two runs but Rasheed was too focused on marathon running to remember cricketing logic. Swaroop got him back on strike, but it was too late by then as only one ball remained. Rasheed swung for glory, missed, got a leg-bye, and ended on 97. Pain. Pure pain. So close to century. 249/3 in 35 overs was a solid score for our team. Our batting lineup was very strong today, but the opposition took only three wickets, so most of our batsman basically came for a picnic. Opposition started aggressively, smashing two boundaries in Rohit’s first over. Vicky took personal offence and removed both openers in the next over. Balance restored. Despite losing two early wickets, they kept up the required run rate of 7 per over. Rohit then took his first over revenge by dismissing the third batsman in the 7th over. But their next pair decided to copy our partnership strategy. Their partnership went on for a long time. They were steadily meeting their required run rate and it looked like the game was getting out of our hands. Thankfully, Naren broke the partnership in the 20th over. Balaji joined the fun with two wickets in the next over, and Naren added another later. Their batting lineup was now collapsing like a house of cards. They still had depth though, and the next pair tried to rebuild. But with the run rate dropping to nearly zero during the collapse, the pressure was too much. Swaroop kept rotating bowlers like a DJ switching tracks - pace, spin, medium pace - ensuring no batsman got comfortable. Wickets kept falling, and they were all out for 188 in the 33rd over. We won by 61 runs, comfortably and stylishly. Opposition was very good and we won because we had one of the best set of players today in our team. Each one gave their best and made this win possible.