S

enayan Cricket Club (SCC) has defended the championship of the Jakarta Cricket Association (JCA) league with a convincing 58-run victory over Ceylon Cricket Club (CCC), said a release on Sunday.

In last week's grand final CCC's ground in Cibubur, East Jakarta, SCC put on an incredible display of team work to secure the back-to-back league championship title.

CCC won the toss and put defending champion SCC into bat first. SCC put up 233 for 7 in 35 overs and then dismissed its opponent for 175 with five overs to spare.

The SCC's supporters went wild with joy when Faisal Hashmi caught Thusara Perera off Aijaz Matoo to bring an end to CCC's challenge.

At one stage the contest seemed to go out of SCC's hands as Presantha Fernando of CCC whacked 11 fours and 5 sixes to score 89 runs, but his lone efforts were not enough to overhaul the target set by SCC.

Put into bat, SCC started well. The two SCC openers, Rabi Narayan Gaudo and Srinivas Krishnan put in 80 runs in the first 13 overs.

They scored at a brisk pace from the start and kept rotating the strike. Rabi Narayan was the first fall from Tomothy's bowling for 30 good runs.

Rajeev Rajeswaran then played some scintillating stokes before he was bowled out by Chinthaka. Rajeev made a quick fire 49 runs that included two sixes and three fours. Srinivas, who made 66, including five fours and one six was eventually caught at deep mid wicket. Amar Kapadia played earlier than planned did not last long and was out for 12.

William Noronha who replaced Amar, played a very useful innings of 23 runs. Faisal Hashmi who came to bat after Williams's dismissal scored ten runs in just four balls. Subho Sarkar and Jamshed Ahmad remained not out with 7 and 9 runs respectively.

SCC added 100 odd runs in the last 10 overs thanks to some big hits. For CCC Chintaka bagged three wickets while Timothy took two wickets. CCC fielding was poor as they dropped maybe eight catches.

In reply CCC had a shaky start when Jibu Chacko made early inroads for SCC as he easily dismissed CCC's opener Ram Krishnan.

Next to bat was the dangerous Dihan Silva who has scored over 540 runs this season at an average of 54, clean bowled by Aijaz Matoo, trying to loft a yorker length ball.

Presantha Fernando roughed up the SCC paced attack with his audacious stroke-play, smashing the bowlers mercilessly all over the ground. CCC were 84 for 2 at the first drinks break.

William and Shubho, introduced in the second session kept up pressure on the batsmen by not letting them score freely.

That is when Presantha lost his cool. While attempting to hit William over cover he stumbled a bit and Prakash with lightening speed brought down the bails, it was a brilliant stumping and the turning point of the match.

CCC never recovered from this loss. The SCC players bowled brilliantly to restrict their opponents and grabbed wickets at regular intervals.