Gymkhana Coast Twenty-20 Champions

Written by Stewart Kayne, this report has been forwarded to me by the organisers, so I am assuming it is for general release:

"The Coast Cricket Association 20 0ver Final was played on Sunday 21st May. It saw the Coast League Champions for the second year running, Coast Gymkhana taking on Mombasa Sports Club at the Coast Gymkhana Club. Gymkhana Captain Sanjay Patel won the toss and decided to set the pace of the game by electing to bat first. After a steady start by openers Mohamed Sawjani and Harish, the innings took shape in the 4th over, and they never looked back. They brought up their side's 50 runs in the 7th over, thanks to two dropped catches by the Mombasa Sports club boys. Thabith kept the score down with figures of 3 overs for 18 runs, but Zaheer Abbass went for 44 runs in his 4 overs, without a wicket. Harish, who scored 26, was finally caught by Neal off the bowling of Nikhil, who went for 28 runs in his 4 overs with just the one wicket. That saw the rest of the batsmen, Stewart Kayne (7 runs) and Sanjay Patel (7* not out) pushing the singles so Sawjani could free his arms and work his magic with his bat. He smashed eight 4s and seven 6s and finished up with 100 not out by the 20th over. It was his second ton in the 20 -20 competition this year to go with his 80 runs in the semi final. Some big hitting from Irfan, who hit 18 runs in 8 balls, along with Sawjani and Sanjay, saw the home side to 168 for 3 wickets in their 20 overs. Brothers Neal and Sagar along with Mombasa Sports Club captain Nikhil each picked up a wicket for their side. Mohamed Sawjani left the field to applause from both the crowd and the fielding side for his knock.

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Mombasa Sports Club's chase was put on hold as Irfan knocked opener Thabith's stump out of the ground in the early overs of their run chase. Mohamed and Nikhil rallied to put on a good partnership, scoring at above the rate required. They brought up their sides 50 runs in the 7th over. But with good captaincy by Sanjay, the introduction of spinners Pradeep and Rashmi saw the game slipping away from Mombasa Sports Club. Mohamed topped scored with 37 runs and Nikhil scored 30. Coast Gymkhana's spinners ripped through the batting line up with Radeep picking up 1 wicket for 18 runs in 4 overs, Rashmi taking up two wickets for 20 runs in 4 overs and Kayne also picked up 2 wickets for 19 runs in his 3 overs. Some good fielding by the Coast Gymkhana boys saw the game through for the home side. Stewart snatched 2 catches, along with great wicket keeping by the centurion, Mohamed Sawjani, with 3 stumpings. Irfan took a good catch on the boundary as well to dismiss Sagar on 10 runs, the only other player to get into double figures. Harish bowled great left arm pace at the start only going for 14 runs, picking up 1 wicket in 4 overs, and Irfan picked up 2 early wickets but went for 43 runs in his 4 overs. Mombasa Sports Club were bowled out with one ball of their innings left, with Hemal picking up the last two wickets in the final over and only going for 2 runs. MSC finished on 124 all out in 19.5 overs thus giving the Coast Cricket Champions the victory by 44 runs."

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Great to finally get some news out of Mombasa. Mohamed Sawjani certainly sounds like a player to watch out for with 2 centuries and an 80 in the competition! It is good to see there being another wicketkeeper who can open. Hopefully, we will continue to see more from the coast, and I look forward to them putting up a good showing in the Atul Shah Memorial coming up in early June.