1st Knightriders faced Banchory with a greater confidence as the away-side coming to the home team after a 4 in a row loss last year. But a series of unfortunate events including drizzle, poor visibility during batting and the deceitful umpiring decisions made a day to start with worse.
 
Banchory won the toss and elected to field. The opening pair Vijay A and Vijay B – Yes it is Amirtaraj and Balaji, played cautiously scoring 18 runs in 8 overs. With drizzle on and seam completely soaked at times, with a slippery astro made the batting bit dodgy at Groats road. G Grover’s delivery trapped Vijay Balaji (3) to go down for a LBW later Somu for the leg before as well. KnightRiders were 27 for 2 in 10 overs. Vijay Amirtaraj played another classy innings and partnered with Rowan Vaduganathan added runs to the board. Siva Rangaraju was bowled for a duck when team's total was 68 for 5. Next The dangerous duo, Nishad & Rashid smashed 22 runs each in quick session to take team total past 100.But losing Prashanth & Selva cheaply meant the score was 119 for 9. Prem Ballal along with Prashanth MaliReddy scored useful 15 runs for the last wicket and the team was all out for 135 in 42.2 overs.
 
KnightRiders started to bowl with an ultimate confidence and some of the fire powered deliveries from Big Prash(Prashanth Maniyan) & The Deccan Express (Prashanth MaliReddy) were astonishing. Not a word of boast, nevertheless some of the deliveries from both the Prashant’s were of international standard. Banchory was struggled by the pace attack of Big Prash & The Deccan Express. S Hicks(0) was caught behind off by an unbelievable delivery from Big Prash & G Grover surrendered his wicket to MaliReddy , Banchory were 2 for 2 in 5 overs. Big Prash kept things with a great first spell of his bowling with 4 consecutive maidens and on the other end P MaliReddy dismissed Safee (2) and Itaz(0) inexpensively and Banchory were 5 for 4 in 12 overs of which 7 were maidens. The dangerous M Moizudeen appeared to be settling down in the wicket got a leading edge in one of the peach of a delivery from Big Prash. The umpire didn't give him out (not surprised) but the batsmen walked away and received a deserved applause for a display of great sportsmanship, Banchory were at 9 for 5 that time.
 
Banchory’s ever-annoying skipper Sunil Chikanna had a lady luck day  with his umpires support decided not to give him out by any chance and some of the catch dropped by Knights at the fag end of the day. Perhaps that made Banchory to move its score up if not there was a chance for Banchory to get winded up for a record low score in their club history.  It was a shocking sportsmanship from the umpires and it’s a shame on Banchory.
 
The game ended in a draw as Banchory scored only 62 losing 6 wickets in 47 overs as ‘Will – The wall of Banchory anchored the innings with his steadfast innings.
 
KnightRiders looked confident of dismissing their opponents to the lowest score but they survived another day - thanks to controversial umpiring. It is a surprising fact that Banchory was desperate for a draw albeit they were in the verge of getting the relegation – What a waste of day!

Knight of the day - Prashanth Maniyan & Prashanth Mallireddy

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2nd XI lost their game against Crescent by 32 runs.

Skipper Bala won the toss for KnightRiders and invited Crescent to bat first. In spite of decent knock by crescent top order batsmen the visitors were reduced to 91 for 6 at one stage thanks to a sharp bowling by Santosh and Bala. However, Crescent captain Nathan (45) and J Ali (55) came to the rescue with an 90 run partnership for 7th wicket and crescent posted an impressive 192 for 9 after 42 overs. BalaMurali Balaji 59 for 5 and Santhosh Malleshappa 26 for 3 were impressive with the ball.

KnightRiders reply was nearly decimated at the start as T.Suri ran through the top order to leave them at 63 for 5.Santhosh Malleshappa (39)  played well despite being severely hampered by injury(muscle cramp ).There was some resistance from the lower order, but it was too late to save the match. Vinodh (20), Ramchander (16) and Sabiel (21) all scored some brisk runs, but it wasn't enough to save the visitors .KnightRiders were all out for 161 in 36 overs. T Suri and A Ahmed took 4 wickets each for Crescent.


Knight of the day - Bala & Santhosh