Opening Day Jitters

HONG KONG—Journeyman Ahmed Ewis led Punjab-A to a devastating 6-1 score-line welcome to newly promoted Hong Kong Cricket Club-A to the Premiership at Happy Valley on Sunday (21/September).

Ewis, playing for his third club since arriving in Hong Kong after Shaheen and Khalsa, was again at his delightful scoring best as he nabbed a goal through his signature penalty corner.

The way Ewis ran, collected and distributed the ball throughout the game opened up space for his fellow Punjab team-mates to allow them to literally score at will, showing why he is so sort after and where his talents lie as Jaffer and Aleem collected a brace along with Harman’s single can attest.

However, Cricket Club’s baptism to the Premiership was not a defeat in shame but something of which they can be proud despite the lopsided score-line as they conducted some scintillating runs of their own throughout the 70 minutes of play.

Ewis, who now dons a player/coach role for Punjab was overjoyed with the way his side played against Cricket Club.

“This is a young team and as such they try hard to play as a team. Here there are no star players and everyone must try hard if we are to succeed,” said Ewis, who felt he had not enjoyed his stay with back-to-back Premiership champions Khalsa last season.

Ewis, enjoying his new role with Punjab, sees himself playing a more dynamic, free running role, as he time and again evaded his markers and distributed passes to chaotic effect in the Cricketer’s defensive line-up.

Darren Tavares, Hong Kong Cricket Club-A skipper agreed with Ewis’s comments in regards to the result.

“The game today was a good learning curve for us,” said Tavares, whose side seemed to be outgunned by their rivals as they tried to hold Punjab’s speed and passing game.

“I think it was brilliant that Hong Kong Cricket Club did well to gain promotion and now we need to improve our game and keep in touch with some of these big clubs,” he said, whose side did well when they reduced the score-line through Andrea Le Claire to stop the match from being a total whitewash.

But Punjab will have their work cut out trying to halt other pretenders to the crown as Ewis sighted the usual suspects of Hong Kong Football Club-A, Khalsa and Singh Shaba Sports Club as they rallied home some wishful scores on the league’s opening day.

At King’s Park, starting on-form on day one of the new 2014-15 season, was three-time Premier League champions Khalsa as they stomped their class with a 13-0 riot over Kowloon Cricket Club-A. Close chasing SSSC-A ended their day on a 5-0 win over Rhino-A and KNS-A cementing their talents showed why they deserve a Premier place, as they defeated HKFC-B 7-2. Meanwhile Valley-A edged out Shaheen 2-1 in a close, hard fought contest at the same venue.

At the Hong Kong Football Club, the HKFC-A team tore Pakistan Association-A hearts with a 11-0 avalanche.

Women
In the only women’s Premier division match played last weekend, Dutch-A beat HKFC-B 4-2 at the Happy Valley ground on Saturday Sept 20.

Eddie So is a freelance photographer and reporter with more than 25 years of journalism experience in Hong Kong.