Sports
Napa Valley Cricket Club Tops Berkeley at Calistoga Matchup
Next game is July 27 against Sonoma Gullies.
Napa Valley Cricket Club triumphed in a a tight game against a talented Berkeley club at a July 14 matchup at Napa Valley's home field at the Calistoga fairgrounds.
The Berkeley club, who play in Division 3 of the Northern California League, won the toss and choose to bat first on what turned out to be a firm and consistent pitch.
Napa struck early with Bijoy Ojha taking two wickets in his first over to put Berkeley on the back foot. Englishman Stephen Kent came to the crease for Berkeley and steadied the ship with a knock of 24 of 30 balls and put on 35 with Berkeley Captain Harish Choudary until he was dismissed by a stunning catch by Napa Valley fieldsman Inderjeet Singh at deep square leg.
Other contributions from Gagan Bal (60 off 60) and Vaibhav (41 off 54) helped Berkeley posts a total of 205 all out. Three wickets each for Singh and Scott Curwood helped Napa Valley restrict Berkeley to their very chasable total of 205.
After lunch, Napa Valley started the chase with New Zealand winemaking pair Bill Nancarrow (Duckhorn Vineyards) and Jeff Keene (Cornerstone Cellars) opening the batting. Keene was soon back on the sidelines after being seeing his middle stump cartwheeled off the second ball of Berkeley opening bowler and captain, Choudary.
Nancarrow was joined by a series of Napa batsmen over the next few overs as he helped keep Napa in touch with the required run rate. A fine mid innings show of power hitting from Singh 58 off 41 balls including five fours and five sixes put the Napa Valley team in the driving seat. Singh went for one boundary too many and fell to a fine catch a long on and this brought Irishman Andrew Healy to the middle.
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Healy joined club President Phil Bourke in the middle and with 15 overs remaining they needed only 40 runs to secure victory. Healy batted stoically with just 7 runs of 25 balls while Bourke blocked the good balls and dispatched the loose balls for boundaries, racking up 5 fours in his total of 30.
Fittingly it was President Bourke and club Vice President Healy who brought home a well deserved victory for Napa valley with six full overs left to face.
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“This was our first win of 2013 here at home at the fairgrounds and it was a result of a fine batting performance," said Napa Valley Club Secretary Scott Curwood.
"Saying that the bowlers did a great job of restricting Berkeley to 205, which made the job of the batsmen a touch easier.
"With four more homes games to come we’ve started off this run of home games in the right manner and we’d love to win our next game against Sonoma and go 4-3 for the season.," Curwood said. "We’ll see!”
“It was a great game of cricket and credit to Napa Valley for a great batting performance," said Berkeley CC Captain Harish Choudary. "It’s the first time that we played them and the trip up to Calistoga was very enjoyable, even if we couldn’t quite win the game.
"We look forward to plenty more games against them in the future,”he added.
The traditional Clos du Val “Man of the Match” award was given to Berkeley CC’s Harish Choudary for his excellent opening spell of bowling.
Score Summary
Napa Valley CC 207/7 beat Berkeley CC 206 all out by 3 wickets. (35 over game / 11 batting)
NVCC Batting – Inderjeet Singh 58 runs off 41 balls (5 x 4, 5 x 6), Phil Bourke 30 off 25 (5 x 4, 1 x 6), Bill Nancarrow 22 off 30 (1 x 4).
NVCC Bowling – Inderjeet Singh 3 wickets for 9 runs off 7 overs, Scott Curwood 3 for 50 off 6.3, Bijoy Ojha 2 for 45 off 6.
Next Game Details – all at The Fairgrounds, Calistoga
Saturday 27th July 2013 versus Sonoma Gullies 10am – 4pm
Sunday 11th August 2013 versus Marin CC 10.30am – 4.30pm
Sunday 25th August 2013 versus Caribbean Old Boys 10.30am – 4.30pm
Sunday 8th September 2013 versus Philadelphia CC 10.30am – 4.30pm
SponsorsThe Napa Valley Cricket Club wishes to acknowledge the assistance of the following sponsors
Clos du Val, Govino, TricorBraun WinePak, Portocork, 3 rock marketing, Napa Gourmet Foods, IPC Hospitalist Group (Queen of the Valley), Calistoga Roastery, Taltarni.
More details on the Napa Valley Cricket Club can be found on the website – http://napacricket.com/
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