Pirates hold nerve in tight chase

Promoted pirates began their premier division journey with a win albeit with abit of early season jitters. Sumair who was captain in Mr. Gurbutt's absence won the toss and elected to field on a very hot day.
There has been a lot of speculation about the captain's interesting first over, perhaps it was the pitch, perhaps it was the exaggerated swing but we will never know. Manoj and Will Brewis tried to bring back some order but the opposition dismissed every full pitched delivery and maintained a healthy run rate until the captain again exercised his powers by bringing himself back and taking the first scalp. The run rate started to go down as Kyle Haughton and Shamana Devaraju bowled a tight line getting couple of wickets each. Will and Manoj came back to clean the tail and opposition who was aiming for 250 plus at one point only managed 186. Special fielding mention to Andrew Hook and Tyler Shoare for taking excellent catches. The chase began with an early unlucky dismissal of our overseas Rhys Fletcher however Paul Fisher and former captain (forever pirate) Hook steadied the ship and added valuable runs. The match winning partnership of 116 runs broke when Hook soon after his half century held out to long off. Fisher followed him after a valiant 49 and then their was the usual Pirate mini-collapse. Wickets kept falling and run rate dipped until Manoj went in with his favorite bat showed his might. It came to down 8 of the last over with Manoj and Will Brewis in the middle. A boundary, a double and a single from Manoj left young Brewis on strike with scores level and he showed immense cool with a quick scamper. Pirates won by 2 wickets and 2 balls to spare.