As part of their preparation for the competitive Vancouver Island cricket season, Campbell River Cricket Club (CRCC) played their second in-house game in the heat of Saturday afternoon.
The game was played on the new all-weather pitch at Carihi School which is now the Home of Cricket in Campbell River. It has been absolutely fantastic for CRCC to finally have a place it can call its own and made possible by the pitch sponsors (Ketza Pacific Construc-on, Upland Ready Mix, Upland Excavating, Bobs Floors, Acme Concrete Pumping, Carmac Diesel and C&L Equipment Rentals.)
Two evenly matched sides, Team Ben George and Team Guri Baidwan were pitched against each other in a close-fought contest. Team Ben got off to a slowish start – with their normally aggressive opening batsman Parmeet Singh playing some careful cricket to score 47 against the wily bowling of Jos Bell, while some of his colleagues fell early. Brief cameos by Joel Burns and a canny innings by veteran John Jepson propelled the team to a respectable total of 173 runs all out.
Team Guri lost wickets early against some good bowling by Singh, but the captain was playing a steady, intelligent innings and when vice-captain Aaron O’Shannessy joined him they steadied the ship, and it looked like they would be enough to see the match out. In the end, Aaron fell for 27 runs and Guri almost got his first 100 runs in Canada before being caught at 85.
Sijo Jose and Jimmy Andrews were able to pick up the remaining runs with some quick scoring, in the knowledge that they had a couple more batsmen to cover them, and Jose scored a free-flowing 49 runs before falling LBW to Gabby Mason – who
team Guri had loaned to the opposition when a few of their players had to leave just before the finish.
Man of the Match was Guri Baidwan for his great innings and smart captaincy, and incidentally, after working a night shift Saturday night, Guri went down to play for Cowichan Cricket Club on Sunday morning and scored the century that had eluded him the day before.
The team gave a special thank you and shout out to Syed Arfan, owner of one of the team sponsors The Spice Hut, who provided a fantastic butter chicken and chickpea curry lunch for everyone.
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