By Richard Boxall
The new Cyprus Premier League was launched on Sunday, with victories for Nicosia Select XI and Limassol Select XI over the Cyprus national squad.
This tournament is designed to provide good standard, competitive cricket for the national team players as they prepare for the upcoming world cup qualifying competition, which will be held in Guernsey next month. And that is what it delivered as the Cyprus XI were tested and beaten in both their first two matches.
There are many good cricketers in Cyprus who are not eligible to play for the national team, and from these players a “best of” Nicosia and ”best of” Limassol team were formed, to play in a 3-team competition with the Cyprus national squad.
The Cyprus team was admittedly missing some of its better players through injury and unavailability, but would still have been disappointed to lose heavily in the first match against Nicosia at the Happy Valley ground.
Nicosia made 144-7 in their 20 overs, a decent score on this ground with its quite long boundaries and slow outfield. Karan Singh played a fine innings of 45, featuring excellent running between the wickets, and received good support from Waseem Abbas and Salman Khan.
Pick of the Cyprus bowlers was Vimal Khanduri who, on his birthday, conceded only 15 runs from his four overs of leg-spin and took the wicket of Karan.
The Cyprus reply was badly paced. Only 27 runs were scored in the 6 over powerplay, and at the halfway point the score was 49-3, leaving 96 to get in the second half. Taranjit Singh, the usual source of quick runs, made 24 but once he was out the innings fizzled out to 109 all out in the 18th over.
All the Nicosia bowlers performed well, with pride of place going to Junaid Ur Rahman who kept things quiet at the start with 1-6 from 3 overs, and Muhammad Tanveer with 3-12 from 3 overs.
In the afternoon match, against Limassol, Cyprus fared better with the bat, reaching 158 all out in the last over. Roman Mazumder played the anchor role with 45, but again the main impetus to the innings was provided by Taranjit who hit an excellent 51 from 19 balls, including 6 sixes.
After a steady start in reply Limassol sprung into life through Muhammad Huzaifa (47 in 25 balls) and Prasad Suranga (37 from 20). But then Roman, after a torrid first over, dismissed them both on his way to 3-25, and the match was in the balance.
Rajasekhar Poluri, who had earlier taken two wickets, came in to settle the match decisively, hitting a vital 21 not out from 9 balls to see Limassol to victory from the first ball of the 20th over.
The day provided two good games of cricket and plenty of food for thought for the Cyprus team before the return matches against the Nicosia and Limassol teams.
