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On
28 September, the Latvian Cricket Club visited neighboring
Tallinn, Estonia for a friendly against the Estonian Cricket
Club. It had been raining in the Estonian capital for a week
before the game but, except for the poor condition of the
outfield at the Hippodrome, conditions were perfect for cricket
on the day of the match.
The teams agreed to play a 30 over match, and after formal
introductions and a photo session, the game got under way. The
LCC won the toss and without any hesitation elected to bat
first. Both LCC openers had a steady start and kept the scoring
rate at 4 runs an over for the first 10 overs until eventually
LCC's opener Vikram Saran lost his patience and gave an easy
catch to the wicket keeper, having made 16 runs. LCC captain
Rohit Sood arrived at the crease, increased the run rate and
gave the spectators something to enjoy before getting out for
41. Sumit Chakravarty, LCC's most experienced batsman, then
piled on the runs with the help of wicket keeper cum opener
Samir Singh, taking the score to 150 in 19 overs. Samir was
eventually caught behind on 41, and was replaced by Anand, who
played some entertaining shots before being caught on the
boundary. Deepak Bhandari, the next man in, had a go at the
bowlers from the both ends and the LCC's score reached 200. The
last overs saw some good and steady bowling from the ECC though
it all came too late. Sumit (53), the top scorer for LCC,
eventually got run out while taking a risky 2nd run and Deepak
(31) got caught behind before the end of the 29th over. The tail
enders took the score to 217/7, leaving ECC and its captain
Jason Barry the daunting task of scoring 218 runs against LCC's
strong bowling line-up.
After the lunch interval, the LCC's bowlers started with some
good swing and pace which caused problems for the inexperienced
Estonian batting side. ECC's captain Jason gave some resistance
before being eventually bowled off the bowling of Safdar. With
the loss of ECC's vital wickets, LCC's captain gave all of his
players except the wicket keeper a chance to bowl. Thanks to
some sloppy fielding and too many extras, the Estonians got
their 100 in the last over before being all out on the score of
103. LCC's bowlers performed superbly especially, Animesh (5
wickets), Rohit (1), Safdar (2) and Vijay (1), whilst Sumit and
Ajay bowled to a steady line and length. At the end of the game
ECC captain thanked the Latvian team for a wonderful display of
batting and bowling and hoped that the teams will face each
other in the next season on a new cricket ground with better
facilities. LCC enjoyed their stay in Tallinn and are looking
forward to playing with the regional teams in Riga.
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