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Greetings! Cricket Lovers
Littleton's dreams of promotion were shattered in moments of madness with run outs against United Sports. Littleton started the day knowing that a win with maximum points would certainly give them promotion, whilst 19 points would have meant possible promotion on run rates. United Sports needed to gain as many points as possible to ensure survival in division 3 for 2006. United Sports won the toss and elected to bat. United Sports posted 219 in 38.2 overs with no major scores, whilst Littleton Naeem Khan took 4-35. Littleton made useful ground in reaching their target as Maqsood Ahmed (76) and Naeem Khan (51) made useful contributions. Littleton needed 2 runs off the last two overs with two wickets in hand. However, with the pressure building they contrived to loss both their last two wickets to run outs still 4 balls to spare and end the match as a tie, thus missing out on promotion. Dharmaj defeated Kondor to extinguish the latter's promotion hopes, leaving Magenta Security in second spot to win promotion for the second year running. Ramesh Patel (55no and 4-31) helped Youth Wing beat EKTA by 99 runs to insure their survival for 2006 season.
Lankians, North London Drifters and West Harrow all needed wins in division one to avoid relegation. Lankians found themselves in the relegation zone due to self inflicted administration penalties during the season. Sai batting first posted 115 as the Lankian bowlers Indrajit Coomaraswamy 3-35, Ravi Subramaniam 2-10 & Chris Jeganathan 2-19 all whittled away the Sai wickets. Lankians were always in controlled as they moved beyond the Sai total with 4 overs to spare. North London Drifters managed to make 186 against Rajput Samaj with Nayyer Abassi top scoring with 47. Fast bowling from Nadeem Akhtar 4-21 & Nayyer S. Abassi 2-7 than played major roles as Rajput were bowled out for 94 with over 9 overs to spare. West Harrow made 166-8 in 40 overs against Embassy who were looking for a win to finish in second place. Imran Haider lead the run chase with a useful 59 as Embassy made it home with a wicket and 4 balls to spare. West Harrow have been relegated to division 2 bring to an end the longest stay in division one since they were promoted in 1992 season.
In division 2, three clubs were fighting to avoid relegation on the last day. Kingsbury Construction scored 276-6 to pick up maximum batting points for the first time this season as Harish Mepani 76, Suresh Patel 55 and Dharmesh Mepani 46 weighed in with useful contributions. Bharat Olympians showed little resistance and were bowled out for 106. Vetern spinner Harilal Vekaria inspired Muktajivan with 6-38 against Lohana as the latter were bowled out for 122; Muktajivan than raced to 124-5 to secure a win. Welldon elected to bat first against Express and put up a respectable 248-6 in 40 overs with Rashmi Patel making 59. Express who were docked 7 overs for a late start made light work of the run chase as they made 249-6 in only 26.4 overs. Shakeel Ansar (91) and S. Shah (81) mounted the Express slaughter of the Welldon bowlers. The wins for Kingsbury Construction and Express ensured that they stayed ahead of Muktajivan who are relegated to division 3. Division two champions and Baker Tilly Cup winners Sri Lankian Cavalier signed off their season with an emphatic win against Stanmore Jaffrey's.
In division 4, Centurions had a comfortable win against Young Puthoharis by 144 runs in which Sameer Joshi (76) and Sawkar Rawat (64) starred with the bat for the former. Capital Skipper Varneet Shukla made 47no as Capital made 211-9 in 40 overs against Regency. Spinner Siv Packriswami (5-12) than inspired Capital to dismiss Regency for 46 to keep their hopes of promotion alive. In the 2nd XI competition, Bharat Olympians II finished off the season with a win against Rajput Samaj II as they both finished 1st and 2nd respectively in the table.
