By Bockerie Allieu
FREETOWN, March 11, (SALONE TIMES) – The Sierra Leone Cricket Association ODI Men’s League kicked-off over the weekend on Saturday with Regent Olympic CC taken on Kent CC at the Kingtom Police Ovals.
In all, 16 clubs are battling in the above league to be played at four venues-Kingtom Police Ovals, POW School Ovals Kingtom, Njala Mokonde Ovals and Bo School Ovals in Bo.
In the opening match, Regent Olympic opened the batting in the league with a convincing 349 runs all out in 50 overs. Batting for Olympic, Edmond Kanesi batted a record runs of 18 plus century runs totaling to 118 runs.
Mohamed Lamin Kamara scored 48 runs off 59 runs. In the bowling of Kent, Idrisa Bah took five wickets with 1 maiden and conceived 43 runs. Bowling for Kent, Idrisa Bah bowled 9.3 overs made 1 maiden took 5 wickets and conceived 43 runs. Kent took the crease with match reduced to 25 overs to chase the 250 runs target due to bad weather but only made 110 for 6 wickets in 25 overs.
The umpires called off the match at 6:00pm due to bad weather. Olympic won the match by 4 wickets on Duckworth Lewis method. Kent best batsman for the match Vivek Ravindran scored 36 runs. In the bowling for Regent Olympic, Edmond Ernest after his impressive batting bowled 5 overs and took 2 wickets with 12 runs conceived followed by John Lansayo with 3 wickets in 8.0 overs made 1 maiden and conceived 42 runs.
On match Day 2 Philip CC defeated Crusaders CC by 9 wickets in 24 overs loss of 1 wicket. The Crusaders won the toss and opted to bat first scoring 170 runs all out in 26.3 overs.
In Philips bowling, Emmanuel Mansaray and Ibrahim Kabia took 3 wickets each while Richard Tegbeh took 2 wickets. Philip CC replied with 171 runs loss of 1 wicket with a partnership of Mohamed Kanesi and Victor Coker who scored 100 runs off 70 balls.
Victor Coker in all scored 75 runs off 91 balls with 9 fours and was awarded man of the match while Kanesi scored 43 runs off 38 balls with 5 fours and g. G. Lahai scored 53 runs off 70 balls 4 fours and 1 six runs.
On Monday match day 3, the Crusaders after losing their first match returned to winning by defeating Murray Town CC by 192 runs. T
he Crusaders batted first and scored 226 runs all out in 32.1 overs. In the batting J.M. Joe scored 30 runs off 46 balls, I. Turay scored 41 runs off 44 balls while M. Kabia scored 42 runs off 27 balls. In the bowling of Crusaders Ibrahim S Kamara bowled 7 overs got 1 maiden conceived 15 runs and took 7 wickets, John Lamin bowled 7 overs conceived 46 runs and took 3 wickets and M Kabia bowled 0.2 overs and took 2 wickets with no runs conceived.
