Bring out the “Blast from the Past” is how a 42-year old Shane Deitz would describe his International debut in Vanuatu colours on the opening day of ICC World Cricket League Division 4 in Malaysia as he top-scored for his team but couldn’t inspire them enough as they went down to a much disciplined Jersey, who produced an economical performance to not only collect the 2 points but also slingshot themselves to a healthy net run-rate going into the next rounds of the tournament.
9 years after playing his last first-class and List-A game for his English county, Derbyshire and Denmark respectively, Freddie Klokker turned back the clock as he smashed the tournament’s first century and remained unbeaten to guide Denmark to a comfortable 8 wickets victory over Bermuda, who lost 9 wickets for 75 runs after a 81-runs partnership for the opening wicket and a 53-runs partnership for the 2nd to get bowled out for 209 and didn’t complete their quota of 50 overs as well. A 115-runs unbeaten partnership for the 3rd wicket between Freddie and skipper Hamid Shah sealed the deal for Denmark.
The match of the day was played out between the host’s Malaysia and Uganda. The match had so many up’s and down’s that a regular novice would feel that this was for some Championship or Title fight. It could very well be if they both reach the top 2 at the end of the tournament. While Malaysia played in their usual manner of losing wickets at regular intervals and few of the batsmen scoring the bulk of the runs in the final team score of 208, Uganda kept pressing the self-destruct button throughout their innings to build pressure amongst themselves. A somewhat controversial run-out for the final wicket in the final over of Uganda’s innings saw Muhumuza throw his bat in disgust as the umpire declared him short of the crease to spark off wild celebrations among Malaysia players and supporters. A flying bat bouncing from the ground is what best describes the emotions of the players they go through in such crunch matches which effectively decides their fate in tournaments like World Cricket League.
Brief Scores:
Malaysia 208 all out in 49.3 overs (Suhan Alagaratnam 61, Ahmed Faiz 50, Syahadat Ramli 27, Riazat Ali Shah 4/24, Brian Masaba 2/25, Bilal Hassan 2/30, Charles Waiswa 1/21) beat Uganda 199 all out in 49.1 overs (Deusdedit Muhumuza 38, Fred Achelam 36, Riazat Ali Shah 28, Syahadat Ramli 4/21, Dhivendra Mogan 2/31, Anwar Rahman 1/31) by 9 runs
Bermuda 209 all out in 47.5 overs (Okera Bascome 63, Tre Manders 40, Charles Trott 36, Terryn Frey 32, Bashir Shah 3/17, Saif Ahmad 2/41, Shangeev Thanikaithasan 1/39) lost to Denmark 212/2 in 41.5 overs (Freddie Klokker 108 n.o, Hamid Shah 48 n.o, Zameer Khan 38, Jacobi Robinson 2/43) by 8 wickets
Vanuatu 104 all out in 36 overs (Shane Deitz 36, Patrick Matautaava 20, Ben Stevens 4/12, Elliot Miles 2/15, Charles Perchard 2/17, Cornelis Bodenstein 2/29) lost to Jersey 105/3 in 31.1 overs (Nathaniel Watkins 36, Nick Ferraby 28 n.o, Jelany Chilia 3/30) by 7 wickets
