Trustworthy Knights v Defenders of Peace

Kickstarting their win tally in the previous game against the Strikers, the Knights this time lined up against the so far impressive Defenders of Peace side being lead wonderfully by Haseeb Ahmed. Sticking to their winning formula, the Knights won the toss and elected to bat first at Cheam.

The Fareed+Hamza opening bowling pair of quality left arm spin with express pace has been working wonderfully for the Defenders of late. Giving nothing away, openers Harawal and Imran really struggled to get the score off to a flier as they would have liked. It is quite possible that the wicket may well be soaking still from the extensive amount of rainfall throughout the weekend, but 27 dot balls (out of 36 legitimate balls) in the powerplay, which included two back to back maidens in the 3rd and 4th over is an outstanding bowling effort on a merciless venue such as Cheam. The Knights could not sustain such pressure and were soon 24-2 in the 7th over (Harawal and Faizain back in the hut).

Fawad and Waseem had an excellent 100 run partnership in the previous game, and both batsmen tried their level best to wrestle some momentum back for their side and set the base for a good score. The Defender’s captain Haseeb applied himself smartly with the help of Hadi and Irfan to ensure that the pressure continued to remain, with a good spell of 1-13 in his 4 overs. Whilst captain Waseem of the Knights scored an unbeaten 50* (off 35 balls), he appeared to be the only batsman to play with a strike rate above 100 on this track (145 to be precise) whilst all others clearly struggled to score freely.

Having lost only 5 wickets, the Knights posted a very underwhelming score of 113 having elected to bat first. It remained to be seen if the track was indeed the issue in not allowing the momentum to be built with the bat, as we have recently witnessed scores of this kind be extremely difficult to chase in the recently concluded T20 World Cup too.

The Knights did get one early breakthrough with Waseem removing Azmat in the second over or the chase with the score at 12-1. An opening was made, but the Defenders were in no mood to allow any kind of pressure to be applied on them with both Hadi and Atta Butt (batting at number 3) looking in devastating form! Punishing anything loose, Hadi and Atta started off their hitting spree with boundaries all around the park. With the score at 57-1 in 5 overs, Waseem was forced to bring in his experienced spinner Abdul Qadir to close out the powerplay for him and hopefully snap up a wicket in the process. This wasn’t to be as Hadi and Atta had plans to deposit Qadir for three maximums in the over, with Hadi bringing up a 50 off just 22 balls! A 20 run Qadir over was then followed up by a 20 run over against the second senior spinner Shahid Ahmed!

The Defenders were on the charge and wanted to finish this as soon as they could with possible rain looming. With the score at 97-1 in 7 overs, there was some respite for the Knights with Irfan Sindhu removing Atta for 30 (18 balls). However, Hadi and Hamza continued to press home the advantage and finished the game right at the end of the 9th over, with Hadi remaining not out on 75 off 33 balls (11 fours and 3 sixes at a strike rate of 227).

A game of two strange halves really, with the Knights not being able to get any real momentum with the bat, whereas there was absolutely no stopping the Defenders in their brutal form with the bat on the same track! A thumping win for the Defenders who have so far been the form side of the league. The Knights once again will have to regroup and get their side back on to winning ways, as the defeats tally for them is now climbing into a worrying number.