Scorecard

Villa Park faced Youngsters in the season opener for Night Tournament 2009. As experience from past years tournaments, often toss holds a weight in the outcome of the game in night cricket. Villa Park lost the toss and put in to field by Youngsters. Haris Imtiaz (1) knocked Kailash Oad (0) in the first over but even this early break through did not build any tempo for pathetic VPCC fielding. Youngster batters had plan in mind to run on slow VPCC team with occasional boundaries supporting their cause. Abhijeet Joshi (54) and Saad Bangush (60) turned out to be main destructors as Youngsters took full advantage of drop catches and lazy ground fielding. Youngsters scored very competitive 172 runs in allotted 20 overs. None of the Villa Park bowler made any impression on this day.

Villa Park took the field confident of chasing the target with their in-form batting line-up. Mujtaba Baqir (37) opened with Zeyad Imtiaz (16). Both openers provided a lighting start to the chase; especially Mujtaba was on fire as he thrashed every bowler he faced. Mujtaba’s blazing innings got Zeyad in the act but as things were looking bright for VPCC camp, Youngsters struck in quick succession to dismiss the heart of the Villa Park batting. But resilience of Arif Hockla (33*) kept VPCC in the game till the very last over when VPCC required 14 runs off Perry Donieke (4) who dented VPCC hardest with 4 wickets.

Villa Park lost the game by mere 8 runs; as Youngsters got the better off VPCC second time this season.