Written by Zofi 2nd Team Captain Thursday, 08 December 2011 20:48
2011 Cricket Season
The 2011 cricket season was something that all cricketers from Caribbean were looking forward to so they can put last year disappointment behind them. This season we welcomed back Saddam as the club captain and hoping that he would lead the club to promotion. The 2nd team was captained by myself (zofi) and both teams were very eager to do well this season.
The first team played in the 2nd division and the 2nd team played in fourth division of Central Yorkshire Cricket league. For the 2nd team the season didn’t start the way we had hoped. We ended up losing our first two games, however we got our first victory of the season against East Leeds on the third week of the season and that gave us the confidence we needed. We took the momentum from that victory into Northarum the following day for a cup game and won. This took us to the next round. The team had come over first too defeat and now they were looking like a good team. The team was playing with confidence now and credit must go to every team member for that but especially Meteb Hussain who was the stand in captain for the first few games as injury stopped me from playing early on. Metab did a fantastic job as captain. He had not captained before and to go out there and produce positive results at a crucial stage was a really good achievement not just for him but the rest of the team.
After the first 5 games we had lost 3 games, won 2 and were 6th in the table and already most teams in the division had ruled us out for any success this season. As a team we had self belief and we were also motivated by the senior players from the first team like Saddam, Terrence, Everton and many more. As a team we always believed that we was good enough to do well and then we proved that by going 8 games unbeaten. During those 8 games we beat Oulton who were second in the table at the time. This run provided us with the belief that this could be our season. The unbeaten run took us 3rd in the table and setting up a tight fight for the second half of the season. In the seconds half of the season we kept going. During this we had great individual performance and I would like to say well done to Joe Warner who scored a fantastic hundred, Sylvester Firth who took 44 wickets and won the league bowling averages, Metab Hussain who also took 44 wickets, scored 220 runs and captained the team in a few games. I would also like to say well done to Hassen bashir who scored over 400 runs and showed great ability as batsman. Also well done to Atisham Ahmed who is another youngster who showed great skills. The promotion battle went down to the last game of the season. This was the game which would decide our outcome for next season whether we would be promoted or not. Once the match started we were all very motivated to do our best. The full match was very tense however the final outcome went in our favor and we got our target which was the promotion. This meant a lot to the team and to the club.
Finally I would like to say thanks to Harwood the chairman and the full committee for the support they gave to myself and the club. I would also like to say thank you to the scorers in Keon, Umar, Shaggy and Javid, the grounds man Alf and Mr. Ali for umpiring the 2nd team games. Thanks to the max to all who supported the team with the transport on a regular bases and a big thank you to the club captain Saddam who supported and showed full belief in me. He also gave me the opportunity to play in the first team and I would like to thank him for that.
I would like to take this opportunity and say well done to the first team who finished the season in the middle of the table. Finally, a huge thank you to all the players that played under my captaincy this year. Well done to you all, it was a pleasure captaining you guys.
Zofi 2nd Team captain