After winning the toss, the Penguins vice-captain Tony Van Blerk elected to field first again hoping to dominate with their opening bowlers as they had in the previous weekend’s friendly match.
The Cows stand-in captain, Michael Flowers sent in the opening pair of Sameer Kahn and Michael Rhys Thomas (MRT) to blunt the dangerous bowling attack of Captain Jason Robertson and Waseem Mir (on loan for the Cows for the series).
The ploy provided some success as they navigated the tricky new red pill for the first 17 balls of the innings before a rising delivery from Mir was fended by MRT 5 (11) from outside off stump to the safe-handed Manish Sadarangani at backward point with the score at 1-21 after 3.5 overs.
Unavailable for much of the series, the usual Cows’ captain, Joe Ninan was next to the crease and combined well with S Kahn to keep the scoreboard ticking along building a solid foundation with several attacking players set to come in later.
The pair combined for a solid 54-run partnership before S. Kahn 33 (37) was beaten in-flight coming down the track to Penguin leg-spinner Curt Livermore with the score reading 2-75 in the 12th over.
The in-form Mayur Deuskar who has been steadily moving up the batting order in recent matches was the next in to bat and increased the run rate from the word go playing various competent shots all around the ground.
Deuskar and Ninan combined very well, continuing to build a solid platform and with 10 overs remaining and the score at 103-2 after 15 overs were instructed to move towards a total of 200.
Ninan 41 (38) played with excellent intention and looked to up his scoring rate at the correct time. Unfortunately, his selflessness was punished in the 18th over when he tried to go downtown and was caught at the long-on boundary by Rishi Sadarangani who took the catch comfortably from the bowling of Seemant Raju.
The devastating Ali Kahn 0 (4) was the next man in and the Cows had high hopes he would be the player to push the score beyond 200 however he hasn’t quite been the same of late after breaking his heavy weapon a few matches back and got into a complete tangle with M Sadaragani before popping one up into the safe hands of Robertson at cover.
Manoj Kumar Yadav 6* (13) joined Deuskar and had a difficult time getting bat on ball to put his partner (Deuskar now reaching top gear) on strike, preferring to look for the boundary himself. When Dueskar did get the strike however, he pummeled the bowlers to all parts of the ground moving towards a very unlikely century.
On 97* with 3 balls remaining and on strike, he looked set to achieve his maiden ton but some fierce short pitched bowling proved too good for him as the final 3 balls of the innings passed with no runs scored leaving the Cows with an above par 212/4 from their 25 overs.
It was one of the best performances with the bat witnessed at the ground and a highly impressive continuation of his recent red-hot form in which he showed excellent match awareness, composure and a wide variety of attacking shots.
Deuskar finished the innings with his 97* from just 46 balls including 13 fours and 3 sixes. This was adjusted to 99* (48) after the match on review.
Opening bowlers Mir (5 overs, 1/21) and Robertson (5 overs, 0/33) returned impressive figures while the other Penguin bowlers ended up with rather expensive figures.
In-form Penguins, Van Blerk and M Sadarangani paired up to begin the chase of 213 runs for victory nicely and got the team off to a good start before Van Blerk slashed at a wide delivery with MRT taking a sharp catch at deep gully from the pacy bowling of Yasir Yahya with the score at 1-28 after 3.3 overs.
The hard-hitting Rishi Sadarangani was promoted up the order to join his cousin and the pair put on 20 runs together before captain Flowers put the pressure on with a series of dot balls in his first over before trapping M Sadarangani 10 (19) LBW with the final ball of the over to reduce the Penguins to 2-48.
The next man to the crease, the ever dangerous left-hander Craig Morgan joined the action but the partnership only lasted 9 balls as Flowers struck again with R Sadarangani holing out to Yahya at long on. The Penguins began to struggle at 3-64 after 8.3 overs.
The next man to the crease was Robertson who combined excellently with Morgan, frustrating the bowlers with the left-hand right-hand combination.
The pair put together a very well measured partnership and forced the Cows to go to their spin options in an attempt to create catching opportunities. After a couple of lusty blows over Flowers at long on from Robertson from the bowling of S Kahn, Flowers managed to hold on to one but had to throw the ball back into play as his momentum took him across the rope.
With the partnership nearing 100 and 64 runs remaining from 42 balls with 7 Wickets in hand, the pair had frustrated the Cows and looked close to sealing victory.
Morgan slammed a boundary off leg spinner A Kahn off the first ball of the 19th over before Kahn produced a ‘laser beam’ yorker to uproot Morgan’s stumps much to his displeasure.
Flowers grabbed his third wicket in the following over with a shortish ball rushing Raju 1 (4) and wicket keeper Mudasir Rehman taking a very good catch from the top edge as he ran out to towards backward square leg, the Cows right back into the match with the Penguins precariously poised at 5-161 after 19.3 overs.
Opening bowler Sami Pir returned to the attack with 49 runs required from 30 balls. The first ball of the over was a ripper, flicking Robertson’s 51 (39) bails at pace, a key breakthrough leaving the tail exposed.
Pir then quickly claimed 2 more wickets in new batsmen Gaur 0 (1) and Livermore 2 (2). The 3 wickets in the over all but ending the match before MRT was given the ball for the final over and claimed the final wicket of Mir 14 (14) who put up a brave fight to leave the Penguins 21 runs short of the Cows total.
Pir (5 overs 3-30) and Flowers (5 overs 3-41) were the pick of the Cow bowlers and the Hugo Hub Umpire, Ashan Fonseka duly awarded Deuskar with the Man of the Match honors for his tremendous unbeaten 99.
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