Royal win on Saturday but lose to Afghan Atalan on Sunday

By Richard Boxall

Royal CC continued their strong start in the 2023 CCA BAOFinancial 40 Over Cup on Saturday, while Black Caps and Moufflons gained their second wins in the T20 Cup on Sunday. Other winners over the weekend were Limassol Qalandars, Everest, Afghan Atalan and Sri Lanka Lions.

In the 40 over competition Waqas Akhtar (58), Rahul Behl (46 not out) and Yasir Mehmood (30) helped Royal to a 5-wicket win against Moufflons, who had eventually done quite well to score 210 with 60 from Zeeshan Sarwar and several useful knocks down the order, while Satish Kumar took 3-30 for Royal.

The other 40 over match saw Sri Lanka Lions hit 324-9 against Cyprus Super Kings, thanks to an incredible 90 extras, plus 77 from Nalin Pathirana, 40 by Sujith Tennekoon and a rapid 35 by Kavindu Arachchilage. The Lions then bowled out the Super Kings for 89, with Roshan Siriwardana mopping up the tail with 3-8 in 11 balls.

In the T20 Cup pride of place goes to Afghan Atalan, who defeated Royal by 34 runs. Zubir Sahil hit 8 sixes in his 63, while Abdullah Wafa added 40 not out as the Afghans made 196-8, before restricting Royal to 162-7. The decisive moment was probably the catch by Yasar Qalandari inches from the boundary edge to dismiss the dangerous Sehran Ahmed without scoring.

Epi Lions, returning to the league after a few seasons’ absence, restricted Black Caps to 154-8, but were sadly unable to make any impact with the bat and were dismissed for 30. Black Caps skipper Rajwinder Singh Brar had a match to remember, hitting the top score of 28, before taking 4 wickets for 5 runs.

Kings XI Punjab and Everest played a closely contested game at Ypsonas. Karan (35) and captain Mohit Sharma (33) helped the Kings to 137-9, with Shyam Sundar Pandit claiming 4-16 for Everest. In reply Everest made a poor start, slipping to 14-3 and later 56-6. But late order efforts from Arjun Shahi (32), Sahil Aktar (32 not out) and Shyam Sundar Pandit (37 not out) enabled them to reach their victory target with 4 wickets and two overs to spare.

A slightly surprising result saw Napa Royal Kings beaten by 7 wickets by Limassol Qalandars. Manzoor Ali made an unbeaten 50 at number 9, and Hardeep Saini was out in an unusual way “obstructing the field” for 33, as the Kings were dismissed for 155, with Qalandars’ Prashant Patel taking 5-38.

Shah Khalid’s 53 not out and Amir Hussain’s 38 led Qalandars to a convincing win in the 17th over.

In a less surprising result, Moufflons beat Limassol Bangladeshis by 7 wickets. Murtaza Yamin rolled back the years to take 4-13 and Waqar Ali had 3-8, while Shbbir Hossain hit 30 at number 10 to give the Bangladeshis a score of 104 to defend. However Moufflons knocked this off inside 12 overs with Zeeshan Sarwar making 39.

Before next weekend’s matches there will be a chance to see the next generation of cricketing talent at the Cyprus Cricket Association’s junior tournament, which has attracted the usual good number of entries from boys’ and girls’ teams.