Red Lions bottle it

The Ankara Allstars pulled off a great victory seven run victory over the Red Lions on Sunday and in the process handing victory in the Angora Cup to the Tomer XI.

The Red Lions started well in the field reducing the Allstars to 89 all out with all the bowlers getting amongst the wickets. 

After Saturday's victory over the Tomer XI, the Red Lions were confident they could reach the 90 runs required for victory and with it, the Angora Cup. 

After a few steady overs though the Red Lions collapsed. Overconfidence or perhaps laziness? Although a few of the earlier batsmen reported that the ball appeared to be swinging. 

All seemed lost when the Lions were nine wickets down and still not much past 60 runs, but N. Cookson and C. Sutcliffe batted brilliantly to offer hope to the cheering crowd. It wasn't to be though and the Ankara Allstars won what was a tense encounter.

With all three teams finishing the tournament with one win apiece it came down to some sort of complicated run rate calculation to determine that it was Tomer XI who took away the Angora Cup. 

Congratulations to Tomer and a big thanks to all the umpires, scorers and umpires.  

Pictures coming soon.

* Please note that some of these figures don't add up, perhaps some of the extras were not recorded.

Gwillam coming in from the Car Park end.

Niranjan hits out.

Gwillam on strike.

Unnamed scorer with the Angora Cup. The other trophy is the Ankara Cup that was being played for by three other teams.

For some of the crowd the tension was too great.

The organisers' decision not to charge for entrance resulted in a bumper crowd. 

Cookson - the face of determination.

Not too many smiling faces on the Red Lions post match. 

Stop the presses!

The Red Lions were triumphant on Saturday morning winning a tight match against the Tomer XI to notch up their first win in ... well... a damn long time.

With Captain Douglass-Todd on holiday it was down to Wade to sort of lead a rag-tag army of people of whom most were complete newcomers to cricket in the capital.

Batting first the Red Lions posted 113 for seven in their 20 allotted overs, O'Toole top scoring with 24, with Wade and Jay (I need some last names please) scoring 10 a piece not out at the end of the innings.

On to the bowling and it was Ben Byron who started off a great innings in the field with a magnificent catch that Cookson later said he had given up any hope that it might be caught. There was also one hell of a brilliant run out by Niranjan. Some great bowling from Jay, Gwillam, Satish and Deva set up the Red lions for one hell of a final few overs.

Tension was high as the Tomer XI needed only 17 from 18 bowls towards the end but it was their failure to keep wickets intact that sealed their fate, that and the fact that they gave away 16 more extras than the Red Lions' bowlers.

O'Toole came on for his first over in the 19th over and three balls later the match was wrapped up.

Scoreboard (please note this may be slightly wrong due to difficulty in reading the scoresheets):
Red Lions batting first.



O'Toole hits one down the leg side. 

Friedman saved the Red Lions many a run with some great keeping.

 
Gwillam comes in.

A big shout out to the scorers.

Cookson sends down another dot ball.

A relieved acting Captain Wade at the end of the match.

Nothing like a victory to get the smiles going.

The Red Lions pose post victory.

Altogether now.

O'Toole accepts his man of the match award.