Swamibapa stroll past Ruaraka

Swamibapa Cricket Club maintained their winning streak in the Nairobi Invitational Cricket League (NICL) with an eight-wicket win over Ruaraka Sports Club on Sunday.

Playing away to last year’s finalists Ruaraka, Swamibapa won their third match in the league, beating the hosts by eight wickets with 16 balls to spare.

Swamibapa completed the total of 127 scores gathered by Ruaraka in a simple chase for the loss of two wickets.

Swamibapa top-order batsman Rushab Patel’s half-century and Naman Patel’s opening knock was enough to set things up for them while Maurice Ouma joined in the middle to finish off on the crease.

The visitors, who lost to Ruaraka in last year’s semi-final, rode on an opening wicket stand of 62 runs between Rushab Patel (64) and Naman Patel (29) to seal the win in 17.2.

Ruaraka’s bowling plans were clearly hampered by the two Patels who showed clear intentions of carrying the day as early as the first over which bore fruits within seven overs. The script was the same as strokes and boundaries filled in the first six overs to get the scores to 57 runs for 0 in powerplay.

The hosts managed to dry the runs flow for seven overs to get the scores to 90 for 2 after 13 overs but the damage done by the openers to their defence was too big to amend at that stage.

“We didn’t have a good day on the pitch. With the bat, we lost wickets easily and never looked threatening. With our bowling we failed to contain the openers. By the time we were getting halfway through the second inning, the damage had already been done and we were only trying to play catch up,” Ruaraka captain Purshotam Vekaria said.

Pankaj Bhudia bagged all the two wickets. He began by having Naman caught behind before forcing Irfan Karim to miss a delivery after stepping out on seven.

Maurice Ouma (23 not out) walked in to hit the winning runs as Rushab savoured the victory at the non-strikers end with his 47-ball knock.

Earlier electing to bat, Ruaraka lost early wickets and never recovered from that with none of the batsmen being able to build any formidable partnerships.

Jadavji Bhimji was the hero with the ball with 3 wickets for 11 runs with James Ngoche bagging 2 for 13.

In another match, Sir Ali’s recent rise continued when they beat Nairobi Gymkhana by eight wickets at Sikh Union grounds.

Chasing 137, Sir Ali were home and dry in 14.1 overs thanks to an unbeaten 92 off 54 from Faiz Ahmed.

Ahmed hit eight sixes and five boundaries to lead Sir Ali to its third straight win.