Roller coaster start to the season

Fegocowosa CC's start to the 2011/12 season has been a bit of a roller coaster. A heavy opening game loss to the ever formidable BRF CC was followed by an equally emphatic victory over the youthful Ibeju Lekki outfit.

Emmanuel Okwudili compiled a magnificent 85 against the tough BRF attack, including one imperious 6 onto the pavilion roof at TBS, but only Prosper Mgbanwa (23) was able to lend any support, and a total of 167 all out never looked like being enough. BRF overhauled our total at a canter, thanks to a pugnacious 80* from ex-national skipper Endurance Ofem.

Against Ibeju-Lekki, our 4 prong pace attack was on song, as we bundled the youngsters out for just 70. A couple of indifferent shots saw us lose 4 wickets in reply, but in truth the result was never in doubt. This weekend is a blank for us, before we lock horns with GCI Old Boys in a match which will give a big indication as to which end of the table we will be fighting at come the end of the season.

The rains are going...the cricket is coming

Fegocowosa CC start the 2011/12 CCC League campaign this Sunday 13th November with a stern test against reigning league champions BRF CC. The Warri boys have been undergoing intense pre-season training, and comfortably overcame Foundation CC last weekend in a pre-season friendly, but BRF will pose a tougher challenge.

Overall, it promises to be a highly competitive season in the CCC league Division 1. Foundation are back from the second division with a vengeance and a large chequebook. GCI are as mercurial as ever, and the youngsters of Ibeju Lekki have shored up their squad with some canny signings. But as ever, it is BRF who everyone is looking up to, unbeaten in the league for two straight seasons, will this be the weekend when that run finally comes to an end?

End of term report

So the 2010/11 season has finally come to an end, and the conclusion for Fegocowosa Cricket Clun has to be something like "has made progress, but can do better". In total the team played 14 competitive matches, winning 7 and losing 7. Our standings in each competition were:

CCC League division 1: 3rd out of 5
CCC Super Four tournament: runners-up
EDL Knock-out cup: semi-finalists
GTA T20 cup: semi finalists

We showed that we could match any side on our day, but we still lacked the consistency necessary to bring home a trophy.

Our batting was heavily reliant on Emmanuel Okwudili (448 runs), Femi Oduyebo (238 runs) and Azeez Salako (221 runs). We need another 2 or 3 batsmen to step up to make sure we consistently put big scores on the board.

The bowling attack was led by Femi Oduyebo (2o wickets), Frank Omozejele (18 wickets) and Kehinde "Kento" Olabinwonu (16 wickets). We lacked a consistent 3rd pace bowler and a regular second spinner to back up Kento.

Congratulations must go to Emmanuel Okwudili and Femi Oduyebo, who were selected for the Nigerian national team that performed so well in Botswana and South Africa. We hope they will continue to fly the FGCW flag high in Uganda and Malaysia later on this year.

So we go back to the planning board over the next 3 months. Each of the last 3 years has seen the team move forward, but as we climb the ladder the competition gets tougher. Next year will be our toughest challenge yet.

Season update

The season is drawing to a close and it has been a period of ups and downs for the Fegocowosa Cricket Club:

CCC League - In the league we lost 2 of our last 3 matches, including a particularly painful 8-run defeat to the young guns of Ibeju Lekki but we finished in style with a crushing victory over Lagos Asians to end up in 3rd place in the league. Although this was an improvement over last season, we could probably have done better given our superb start.

LSCA Knock-out tournament - After a comprehensive demolition of FCC veterans in the quarter-final, our cup dreams were ended yesterday by BRF CC as we went down by 5 wickets in the semi-final. Kehinde Olabiwonu showed again that he is probably the best spinner in the country with a spell of 4-21 against the top batting side in the competition, but it was not enough to prevent them getting past our below-par score of 159.

CCC Super 4 - The highlight of the season so far was undoubtedly our 4-wicket victory over GCI Old Boys in the Super 4 semi-final. An excellent all-round bowling performance, led by Femi Oduyebo, riding high on his elevation to the national squad, kept the Ibadan boys to a score of 147, and solid contributions from most of the batsmen ensured that we booked a place in the final without too many alarms.

Next week we commence our 20/20 campaign, and beyond that we eagerly await the Super 4 final against BRF.

Mixed fortunes in the new year

Just before Christmas Fegocowosa CC suffered their first loss in the 2010/11 League season, as they went down by 6 wickets to the defending champions Ibeju-Lekki CC, now rechristened as BRF CC. A pulsating partnership between Emmanuel Okwudili (66) and Aziz Salako (33) had put us on course for a big total batting first, but the innings fell away and in the end we only got to 198 all out. Ademola Onikoyi of BRF set out making short work of the total, but Frank Omozejele (3-38) brought us back into the game with an excellent spell. However an unbroken partnership of 92 between Varun Behani and Jide Bejide ensured that in the end we were comfortably beaten.

We started the new year with a bang as we racked up 264-9 against Lagos Asians in our first match after the holiday break. Femi Oduyebo (57) and Frank Omozejele (48) led the way but there were solid contributions all the way through the order. The Asians were never really in the hunt once Kehinde Olabiwonu (3-26) came into the attack and Newton Ikenwanso (4-9) polished off the tail as they finished on 147 all out.

We had our worst game of the season so far in the return fixture against GCI Old Boys. Their disciplined bowling and fielding performance strangled our batsmen with only Uthe Ogbimi (28) and Kehinde Olabiwonu (25) making meaningful contributions as we limped to 142-9 off our 50 overs. Ramit Gill (57) then took advantage of some poor new ball bowling by our medium pacers and they cruised past our total for the loss of just 3 wickets.

We remain second in the table with 3 matches to play.

A tight squeeze

Fegocowosa squeezed past Ibeju-Lekki CC (previously Ibeju-Lekki II) at TBS yesterday, but it was a lot tighter than the fans of the men in green would have liked.

Ibeju's ploy of sending out a small Indian boy for the toss worked for them and they chose to bat first. They made a steady start, but were let off by the Warri fielders, as two straightforward chances went down early on. Despite that, they never really got any momentum going as Kehinde "Kento" Olabinwonu, on his FGCW debut, turned the screw with a spell of 10 overs for 23 runs, while James "Spartacus" Imhanlahimi picked up a couple of wickets at the other end. Femi Oguntoke continued the spin torture once Kento was done, adding another couple of wickets, and when Femi Oduyebo returned to shoot out three in quick succession, the innings was almost done. The last pair clung on to add another 25 crucial runs, before James claimed his third scalp with the score on 148.

Seun Garuba came steaming in for the yellow-clad Ibeju boys, and laid waste to our top order. After a spell of 9 straight overs, he had knocked over numbers 1-4, and forced skipper Roland Ilube to retire hurt. At 43-4, and with doubts as to Roland's ability to return to the crease, those extra 25 runs scored at the end in the Ibeju innings looked to have assumed match-winning proportions. Oduyebo and Aziz Salako came together to begin the fightback, and when Kento took up the torch after Oduyebo fell for 22 it seemed that the alarms were over. There were more twists in this tale though, as first Aziz was run out with 30 still to get, and Kento then picked out the deep fielder 20 runs away from victory. It was left to the old soldier, Andrew A-Roy Ororho, to see us home by three wickets with 8 overs in hand.

All in all a closer game than it should have been, but neverthless we go into the game against the defending champions in 3 weeks time with 2 victories under our belt.

By popular demand - scorecard from GCI game

FGCW Innings:

1 Mgbanwa c Animashaun b Onwuzilike C 13
2 Alikali c Adegbola K b Onwuzilike C 5
3 Okwudili c Olayinka b Adegbola K 21
4 Ogbimi b Adegbola K 18
5 Ilube c Ewete b Adegbola Y 19
6 Oduyebo c Adegbola Y b Iteogu 60
7 Salako c Onwuzilike C b Adegbola Y 20
8 Omozejele not out 12
9 Ikenwanso lbw b Animashaun 0
10 Oguntoke not out 38
Extras 42
Total (50 overs, 8 wickets) 248

Bowling

Iteogu 8-0-40-1
Onwuzilike C 9-1-42-2
Adegbola K 10-0-53-2
Animashaun 5-0-28-1
Adegbola Y 9-0-30-2
Atoloye 9-0-46-0

GCI innings

1 Adeniran c Okwudili b Omozejele 32
2 Olayinka b Ikenwanso 6
3 Gill c Okwudili b Abioye 9
4 Adegbola K c Alikali b Oguntoke 64
5 Adegbola Y b Abioye 37
6 Onwuzilike O c Salako b Oguntoke 12
7 Onwuzilike C c Salako b Omozejele 12
8 Atoloye c Okwudili b Oduyebo 5
9 Ewete not out 3
10 Animashaun run out 0
11 Iteogu b Oduyebo 1
Extras 34
Total (44.3 overs, 10 wickets) 220

Bowling

Abioye 10-0-35-2
Ikenwanso 4-0-25-1
Oduyebo 8.3-0-34-2
Omozejele 9-0-45-2
Oguntoke 10-0-50-2
Ogbimi 3-0-24-0