Alec Reeve Trophy

Alec Reeve Trophy

Last Friday was the Alec Reeve memorial cricket match, KGV students against a select KGV alumni side at Kowloon Cricket Club. The game is played each year in honour of ex-KGV principal Alec Reeve, who is fondly remembered by those who attended KGV during his time, particularly for his contribution to cricket at school. Alec’s son Dermot attended KGV and went on to captain Warwickshire and England.

This year’s game had been delayed from the usual September date, but was supported as enthusiastically as in previous years, the alumni fielding a strong side of experience and youth, and captained by ex-Hong Kong player Sunny Bhimsaria, whilst KGV lined up a young side bursting with enthusiasm led by newly appointed captain Ryan Gilkison. Sunny won the toss and chose wisely to bat in the 34 degree heat. Anik and Jainam strode to the crease, smiling about former glories from their student days, but were straightaway on the back foot due to the sharp bowling duo of George and Ryan, Jainam reaching for his helmet to prevent a second broken nose! Anik soon got his eye in though to retire on 25. Jainam hit some sweetly timed pulls, before being caught for 18 to give George his first wicket for KGV, which was followed by a short stay from Shiroy, then another strong partnership for the alumni from Amrit (25) and Akash (24). Young Arham was then rewarded for accurate bowling with a couple of wickets, which was followed by a superb run out of Paul by capt Ryan, but then the latter overs saw some lethal swipes from Tim to take the alumni to a dominating 194 off 24.2 overs. Top score for the alumni was Tim with 34 not out, and best bowling for KGV was from Ryan with 1-24, George with 2-36, and young Arham with 3-33.

KGV knew 195 was a tough target off the 25 overs, but started steadily, losing the early wicket of Brian, but Samad then smoked 3 boundaries in quick succession, and with Ashwath looking steady at the other end, the team was feeling positive. The tables turned with an unfortunate mix up between the batsmen leading to a run out of Samad, and the scoring slowed down in the subsequent overs due to some accurate bowling of Gaurav, and Paul in particular who picked up the wicket of Ashwath on his way to impressive figures of 1-2 off 4 overs. George and Arham later enjoyed a flurry of runs, with George retiring on 25, but by then the scoring rate was insurmountable and KGV were limited to 112-7 off 25 overs, leading to an alumni victory of 83 runs. George had the best score for KGV with 25 not out, whilst the best bowling figures for the alumni were Gaurav with 1-17 off 4 overs, Rahil with 1-10 off 3, and Paul with 1-2 off 4.

After much discussion and interpretation of the scorebook after the game, it was decided to award the Bharat bowling award to Arham Sheth for his 3 wickets for 33 runs off 5 overs. Arham is only in Year 8 and has a promising cricket future ahead of him at KGV!

Many thanks to all who took part and particularly to Sunny for his leadership in this event, as well as to the KCC cricket committee who organize this fixture each year. It is great to renew friendships with our ex-students, who are a great role model for our current youth. We hope the fixture will continue for many years to come.

Clive Duddy

(KGV coach)