ABC Samurais fresh of a resounding win over the Lakhani motors titans won the toss and elected to bat in their second game of the Generation Next Season 2 Challenge at Lugogo Cricket Oval. A wise decision it turned out as the opening pair of Abdallah Isaac and Brian Adriko batted Knights out of the equation early on eventually piling on an insurmountable total and winning the tie by 61 runs.
Abdallah Lubega 76 (69) and Brian Adriko 22(30) batted with mettle against a probinh Knights opening bolwing partnership of Joseph Oyet and Davis Acire. The openers were careful to let the moving ball go early on judging the line outside off stump well; they put together an 82 run opening stand built on patience and poise.
Abdallah was quick between the wickets using the vacant slip region to run the ball down to third man for easy singles and open spaces between mid-wicket and square leg to drop and run with a willing partner in Brian Adriko. They took as many singles as were on offer even in the tight overs of Davis Acire; a welcome change to the “boom! Boom! Wicket!” cricket that characterized the opening day of play, maybe a sign of the realization of the task at hand.
When the opener settled in Abdallah began to find his range particularly taking a liking to Jospeh Oyet and Kainerugaba, hitting some clean sixes over mid-off and extra cover region; his 76 was punctuated with 8 boundaries and 3 sixes.
Vishnu Manepali 26(22) then joined Abdallah and put on a 2nd wicket 40 run stand which all but put the shine on a brilliant batting display; Vishnu is enjoying his second season of the GNEXT challenge finding runs easily and hoping between the wickets with all the agility of a dancer. MEET 20(16) then polished off the scoring with a quickfire 20 setting a possibly insurmountable 171.
Knights Openers Emmanuel Hasahya 08(08) and Wilfred Ogwang 02(08) found the wicket like a minefield where Samurais had sauntered through a rose garden of an innings, Agamire and Oburu quickly found them out; Davis Acire 13(30) then went about the task of rebuilding the shambolic start and he found a willing partner in Richard Opio 10(13) but Vishnu broke the partnership; form then on, wickets continued to collapse regularly without pausng any threat to the Samurais total until the arrival of Jonathan Kiiza.
Jonathan Kiiza 37 (16) took apart Abdallah’s bowling in an over he bowled from the shell end; he smoked four mighty sixes in one over getting underneath the off spin well to clear long on by a country mile. The fans went wild as the Knight innings was brought back to life, albeit briefly as he eventually chanced his arm too often and was clean bowled by Agamire.
Knights eventually capitulated to 110 runs losing the tie by 61.
ABC Samurais have clearly set the early pace and are cruising to victory after destroying their opponents without as much as number 5 having a meaningful knock. They will be a force in this edition, no doubt.
ABC SAMURAIS 171/4 in 25 overs (Abdallah Isaac 76(69), Vishnu Manepali 26(22), Hasahya Emmanuel 2/32 in 5 overs) defeated BLINK LOGISTICS KNIGHTS 110/10 in 19 overs (Jonathan Kiiza 37(16), Davis Acire 13(30), Vishnu Manepali 5/36 in 4 overs, Richard Agamire 3/15 in 5 overs) by 61 runs.
Prepared by: Alvin Bagaya ( UG CRICKET)
