Gush stroll to victory

The decision to bat first after winning the toss worked in GCC’s captain Mayank Sharma’s favour as the openers made full use of the flat,concrete batting wicket. The right-left opening combination of Jerry Stephens and Gurpreet Singh deterred LBSCC’s bowlers from striking a consistent line,as they dispatched every bad ball along the ground to the fence.

While the southpaw played the anchor role to perfection by scoring a patient 49 ball 54,Stephens played the more aggressive innings of 53 runs,riddled with eight strokes to the ropes. As Stephens walked back to the pavilion after the 103-run opening stand,off spinner Sandeep Raj celebrated the first of his three wickets.

Competitive total
Some quick thinking by Raj soon resulted in the run out of Singh,who had seemed well poised for a big score. The dismissal triggered off the beginning of a mini collapse as GCC soon found themselves on 128/5 after 22 overs. But Shoaib Prasad (40) and Swapandeep Singh (26) salvaged some pride in the GCC innings as they reached 228/8 in 40 overs.

Chasing 228,LBSCC started off on the wrong foot. Losing both their openers by the seventh over,they were reeling at 55/3 just before the mandatory power-play of eight overs. Just as the lower-order threatened to settle in and put on a partnership,Gurpreet Singh,in his Man-of-the-Match performance,claimed three wickets to mop up the tail,while conceding only 21 runs in his eight overs. LBSCC were bowled out for 152 in the 33rd over.

Brief Scores: GCC 228/8 in 40 overs (Gurpreet Singh 54,Jerry Stephens 53; Sandeep Rai 3/44); LBSCC 152 all out in 32.2 overs (Rajeev Bose 39; Gurpreet Singh 3/21,Varun Khanna 3/23).