Crosby ended their inaugural European Cricket League campaign with a bang on Wednesday evening with victory over Austrians Donaustadt.
After a disappointing opening day in Spain on Tuesday that saw heavy defeats at the hands of 2022 champions Pak I Care and Estonians Tallinn Stallions, the Marown side were out to redeem themselves on Wednesday.
The islanders first game of the day was against the Guernsey champions, Independents Cricket Club.
Crosby won the toss and elected to bat. Trying to push hard from the start the opening batters fell away, with the Manx side losing four wickets in the first three overs
Batsman number six, Christo Roelofse, came in and hit an aggressive tally of 28 off 13 balls.
Other wickets fell cheaply and once Roelofse was gone, hope was placed upon the tail enders Kevin Kniveton and Tom Burrows who added a further 20 runs.
Nevertheless Crosby seemed to fall far too short with a score of 88 for 9 from their 10 overs.
Two quick wickets and an excellent spell from Chris Langford left Independents on 28 for 2 from four overs.
However, the batsman from the Guernsey champions kept chiselling away and managed to knock off the target with nine balls to spare.
A brave effort with Langford ending up with figures of 10 runs for two wickets, George Newton (0 for 18) and Tom Lothian coming in near the end with 0 for 5.
In order to make it into finals day and continue in the competition Crosby had to beat the unbeaten group leaders Donaustadt, with a bonus point.
Crosby lost the toss and were put into bat.
A steady start from Carl Hartmann and George Burrows saw Crosby reach 75 runs in six overs.
Unfortunately, a flurry of wickets slowed the scoring down. Hartmann fell for 39 runs off 23 balls and Burrows for 33 off 17.
A brave late attack with Langford getting 23 runs off 10 balls helped Crosby to a total of 114 for 5.
A great start from opening bowler Langford put the Crosby boys on the front foot trying to defend their total under the floodlights.
Langford was ably supported by some rapid bowling by Newton who broke through with an early wicket reducing the Austrians to 15 runs for the loss of one wicket after two overs.
A very impressive over from Richard Tarr kept the Austrian’s run rate down whilst taking a wicket in the process.
After four overs the Austrians were 33 for 2 and Crosby were starting to believe that the impossible could be possible.
The next few overs started to see a fight back from the Austrians, but the Manx side’s heads never dropped.
After nine overs, Donaustadt were on 109 runs and only needed six runs to win in the final over.
Tarr was called upon to bowl his final over for what can only be described as a nail-biting final six balls.
Two singles followed by a wicket set the match up for a tense finish, the Austrians needed four runs off the final three balls.
A miss-hit shot to mid-off meant the Austrians pushed for a second run but were clinically run out by George Burrows and Hartmann. This resulted in Crosby celebrating their first T10 European victory by only a run.
After a great result against the group leaders, the only disappointment was Crosby could not get the bonus point they required to progress to finals day, losing out on an inferior run rate.