CU FALLS TO CARDINALS U, IN A NAIL BITER

Cardinals United vs Chicago United
By Ahmed Qureshi
CU faced Cardinals U. in their 3rd match of the BPL league. It was a beautiful day with partial sun and patchy clouds that hovered over the stadium for most of the day. CU was looking for their 3rd consecutive win of the season coming off of dominant performances in their first two games. The players were confident and excited to snatch another victory.
Cardinals United won the toss and elected to bat first. Zeeshan Baig and Abhijit attacked for CU, Zeeshan was able to get their opener Vijay out in his third over. The fall of an early wicket slowed down the pace of Cardinals U. but they remained steady and did not lose another wicket until the 18th over. CU struggled to fetch quick wickets, while Cardinals U. played small cricket and chipped in singles and doubles to get to an attainable Score of 174/6.
CU opened with Mursaleen and Dhruv, and lost both of their openers in first few overs. It was Donieke and Pual’s sensible batting that gave CU a much needed confident boost and a decent score on the board. Paul smashed a couple of nice boundaries over sweeper cover and scored a solid 29 off 23 balls. At a point, when the resiliency of CU started to surface in the chase, Cardinals U. stuck to their disciplined bowling and stingy fielding to pull off an upset and stop CU at 169. Donieke and Abhijit also built a strong partnership, but Abhi got out in 23rd over. Donieke was the highest scorer for CU, scoring 53 off 77 balls.
Players were devastated after the defeat, but were already planning on their next game against the Incredibles.