Austria v France – European Championship Division One - Match Recap
After a crucial ending to the bout, France earned a 5 runs win over the Austrians, securing a spot on the 5th position playoff. As the opening game of the day from the European Championship Division One Twenty20 (T20) Series, the match was staged
at Grainville, St Saviour, on Saturday, July 23, 2011.
Team France will now be facing either http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Christopher-Alroy-Martin-c50714, on Sunday, July 24, 2011.
For the current match, the competition began after the Austrians won the toss and chose to field as opening bowlers Nitin Sharma and Nandeep Soggi took their marks. In response, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Abdul-Rehman-c41625 Qureshi stepped on to the crease as
the opening batsmen for France.
With a steady start for the side, the pair took off slowly; however, the partnership was brought to an end in the early moments of the innings with Sithambaranathan exiting the crease.
As http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Arunkumar-V-Ayyavooraju-c46140 came in to replace the loss, the player, coupled with Qureshi, went on to add a few more runs to the total. However the batsmen failed to engage into a decent partnership, as Qureshi too made his return to the pavilion.
A few more minutes into the innings, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Imran-c64193 Asif’s delivery.
Despite losing wickets in quick succession, the French saw some hope as Ayyavooraju and skipper Waseem Bhatti took charge of the crease. Adding some swift runs to the total, the pair managed to recover from the loss but once again fell to the dominating
Austrian bowling as Bhatti was made to leave the crease by Asif.
The innings went on with some impressive contribution from the middle-order players; however, it was finally brought to a close following two dimissals, with Ayyavooraju’s being the final one.
To his disappointment, Ayyavooraju fell just 2 runs short of his half ton. With the close, France managed to post a fair total of 113 with a total loss of 6 wickets.
As for the Austrian response, the opening batsmen, Lakmal Kasturiarachchige and Aman Deep, came out with a somewhat similar opening as the French, and in a similar fashion, the batting side lost its first player in the opening minutes of the session. The
player to make the quick return was Kasturiarachchige.
However, the loss was swiftly recovered as skipper Amar http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Naeem-c78451 came in to aid Deep on the crease. Adding some decent runs to the total, the troubled French finally struck a blow to the batsmen, securing two consecutive wickets in succession. The wickets (Naeem
(17) and Simpson-Parker (0)) were owned by the youngster Zika Ali.
With three wickets already secured by the French, the batting side managed to score 46 runs. However, the game remained to be competitive as more runs came from the middle-order batsmen, offering some trouble to the bowlers.
Austria would have felt hopeful of a successful chase; however, suffering another quick jolt, the team lost more players as the innings came to its closing moments.
The nail-biting finish saw the Austrian side fall merely five runs short of the mark. With 9 players lost, Austria was finally defeated by the French.
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