Saturday’s game against Lille was only the second time this fixture had been played at Standard Athletic and after last year’s thrilling high scoring draw, anticipation for another epic match was high. After winning the toss and electing to bat, Lille started well with their captain Maxime proving a match for Standard’s opening bowlers. Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for his supporting batsman, who lost their wickets regularly after some fine swing bowling from Shakeel and Amarjith. Rizwan steadied Lille’s innings with a powerful 44 with support from a steady 23 from Mario before Johnathan Taylor and Tariq finished off the innings with three wickets each leaving Standard needing 122 runs for victory.
With Standard sensing a comfortable run chase, things couldn’t have started worse when one of the openers was run out after only scoring 1 run. A flurry of wickets saw SAC five down with only 66 runs on the board, with the other opening batsman Malith remaining resolute at one end on his way to an immaculate 43. Once he had been caught, however, Standard still required another 50 runs with only three wickets remaining. Fortunately, Henry and Shakeel steadied things by putting on a 34 run partnership before Shakeel finished things off with some powerful boundaries to send Standard across the line with a two-wicket win.

The result – a two-wicket victory for Standard Athletic.