Sunday 20th September saw the return of the Kerala Tuskers to Meudon for the first time this season. With the sun shining down the Tuskers won the toss and decided to bat and got off to a racing start with their top three putting on 100 within just 10 overs. Standard’s two opening bowlers Praneeth and Anser were having difficulties with their lines (and the storm flies!) so Henry, skipper for the day, turned to spin. Sathesh rewarded his captain’s faith by taking 3 quick wickets, and this coupled with some economical bowling from Sikandar helped slow the visitor’s run rate considerably in the middle part of the innings. This quickly increased, however, as the entrance of skipper Ramkumar (58 runs) and Vikas (38 runs) left Standard with a daunting 294 run target.

In response Malith and Istiak started Standard’s chase in fine style, racing to 93 without loss with some fine back foot pull strokes and drives. Two wickets then fell in quick succession as both Istiak and Henry fell to Tusker’s spin bowler Kiran. This brought Sikandar to the crease, and he began to build a partnership with Malith until he fell for a very watchful 55 runs. Anser then joined Sikandar and the two brought SAC’s total to 210 before both lost their wickets for 53 and 12 runs respectively. It was at this point that Standard suffered a horrendous collapse losing their next 5 wickets for just 29 runs leaving Andrew Macintyre unbeaten…again! With a final score of 243 runs, Standard can feel unfortunate to not have made more from a promising start. This weekend will see the last two home games of the season against the Paris Knight Riders and The Embassy on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September respectively.