Saturday 18th September 2021 Match Report: SACC vs Valencienne Vipers

On Saturday 18th Sep, SAC hosted the Valenciennes Vipers for a 35-over game, the visitors having driven for two and a half hours to enjoy a game in perfect weather. Andrew Jackson, the SAC captain won the toss and chose to bat. The visitors, fresh off having won the Hauts de France championship were brimming with confidence. Their bowlers started well, restricting the run flow and taking wickets to have SAC 3 down for 23 after 10 overs. Tariq and Dilip then dug in to take the score further with the former playing an anchor role and the latter top-scoring with 41. Special mention to junior player Eden for playing with aplomb and impressing everyone with his poise and his shots. Some late hitting from Girish gave SAC a fair total of 132.

In reply, the visitors lost one of their openers in the first over itself with Shakeel bowling a fine spell whilst swinging the ball both ways. They made slow progress thereafter, surviving thanks to multiple dropped catches by SAC, their top-scorer was even dropped 4 times. Finally, in the second half of the innings, the SAC fielders got their act together and held on to their catches, however, the damage had been done and the visitors got home in the 32nd over after being 8 down.

The result: a 2 wicket victory for the Vipers.

Sunday 19th September 2021 Match Report: SACC vs The Embassy

Following on from a close defeat against Valenciennes on Saturday, the Standard Athletic players were looking to rebound with a victory against The Embassy. After winning the toss and choosing to bat, SAC decided to bat first and made a really solid start coming off for drinks in 17th over at 100 for no wicket. Immediately after drinks, however, Henry was adjudged to have been caught behind off a rising bouncer for a neat and tidy 32. What followed surprised everyone, including the opposition themselves, as Standard collapsed losing 3 consecutive wickets for 4 runs. Throughout this period, Johnathan carried on hitting the ball to all parts and finally finished a fine innings on 54. It was the job of Malith to then steady the tail and he eventually expertly guided Standard to 160 all out.
In reply, The Embassy began positively by leaping on anything short to send the ball to the fence. In response, Thodi, Shakeel and Anser brought back some control to the proceedings by taking a number of key wickets before the Embassy dug in and began edging slowly towards the total. It wasn’t until Andrew Macintyre’s introduction that the tide started to turn the Standard’s way. Using all of his experience, Andrew’s in-swingers were enough to bamboozle the opposition into either rash shots or defensive blocks. As a result, victory was claimed by Standard as The Embassy fell short of the 160 target by eight runs.

The result – an 8 run victory to Standard Athletic CC