On Sunday 11 July, SAC faced an XI put together by Shakeel to fill a scheduling gap. Despite Shakeel XI having a power-packed batting line-up, SAC's fast bowlers put on a terrific display and held the batting side to 118 runs. SAC produced some excellent batting to match that total with 4 wickets to spare.
On Wednesday 14 July, Bastille Day, Standard hosted the Pondy Eagles CC in Meudon. SAC won the toss and elected to bat. and despite a slow, wet outfield scored well leaving the Pondy Eagles 187 to win. Despite improving weather conditions, SAC's accurate bowling forced Pondy Eagles into mitakes that led to a SAC victory by 102 runs.
Having now won 5 games in a row, SAC are looking forward to continuing their good form against Thoiry and Chantilly this weekend, before hosting The Paris Knight Riders on Sunday 25th July.
Having now won 5 games in a row, SAC were looking forward to continuing their good form against Thoiry on Saturday and Chantilly away on Sunday. However, this was not to be. On Saturday SAC lost to a revitalised Thoiry by 6 wickets in the third of the John Hardy Shield matches, but, despite the result, for the first time in three years, the John Hardy Shield has returned to Standard having secured the series 2 matches to 1.
On Sunday, playing their first away match of the year away against Chantilly, SAC lost in the heat by 7 wickets. Read on for full details.
On Saturday 19 June we made a presentation to Andrew Macintyre in recognition of his 14 years of service to SAC Junior Cricket. To commemorate that we have attached a bell to the pavilion and a commemorative plaque. Many of you will know that a bell is rung at Lords before the start of each and every session and we thought it a good way to record Andrews's efforts into the Club's history. See the main article for a photo of Andrew and the Bell.
The weather threatened. The atmosphere built.
For four cold, barren years, Thoiry had held the John Hardy Shield; but now, having won the first of three games the weekend before (lead by the brilliant Nisseem, having the finest of seasons) Standard had won the first game and entered Sunday's game passionate to win and bring The Shield home.
The atmosphere built further, our covid-exiled captain Alastair, was back. Rejoice! Better still, he won the toss; we would bat. Did we do it? Read on!
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, and left Standard needing 122 runs.
With Standard sensing a comfortable run chase, things couldn’t have started worse: one of the openers was run out after only 1 run and a flurry of wickets saw SAC five down with only 66 runs on the board, but opener Malith remained to make an immaculate 43, but left Standard still needing 50 runs with only three wickets remaining. Henry and Shakeel then put on a 34 runs together and Shakeel finished things off with some powerful boundaries to send Standard across the line with a two-wicket win. (Read on for full details.)
On Saturday the 5th of June Standard played a 35 over game vs Paris Zalmi Cricket Club.
The result – a 7 wicket victory for Standard!
Due to the unexpected availability of the field, a 40-over game was arranged at short notice with SAC member Shakeel bringing together an XI from the Paris cricketing community.
The result – a 3 wicket victory for Shakeel Invitational XI.
The first John Hardy Shield match of 2021 between Standard Athletic CC and Chateau de Thoiry CC took place under sunny skies on Sunday 20 June 2021. Thoiry elected to bat first and while they started well with 50 runs in the first 8 overs SACC started to gain control with good bowling and fielding getting the visitors all out for 101. SAC never looked in any danger throughout the run chase, thed opening pair providing 54 runs as a base and the rest of the team followed by dispatching any wayward bowling to the boundary and ending by matching Thoiry's score with 6 wickets to spare, which augurs well for next weekend's 2nd match in The John Hary Shield best of 3.
