HONGKONG Cricket Club will be without several of their leading batsmen as they attempt to regain the Fincher Shield from the Kowloon Cricket Club in Monday's match at Cox's Road.
Hongkong captain Tony Morgan announced his side yesterday but he was unable to call on Dai Thomas, John Garden, Martin Sabine, Leigh Beaman and Seamus O'Brien, all of whom are unavailable over the holiday period.
But Morgan said: ''I feel we've got a good balance from the three Sunday teams and it's a reasonably strong side.
''With Warren Symcox down to bat at number eight, it's quite a reasonable line-up.'' Hongkong will be looking to their pace trio of Symcox, Tim Davies and Matthew Johnson to break through the strong KCC batting, which will be spearheaded by Hongkong captain Pat Fordham and Jason Penrose.
KCC will be missing some key players, too, notably Templars' Sunday League and Rothmans Cup-winning skipper Steve Atkinson, who has a broken finger. Infidels' captain Glyn Davies takes over a team also lacking Templars trio Yarman Vachha, Paul Cresswell and Nanda Perera.
Davies produced some fighting talk before Monday's match, saying: ''It's going to be a flat, hard track so they can throw whatever they like at us. They don't hold any worries for us on a flat deck because we bat down seriously to number 10.'' Without Cresswell and Perera, Davies will open the bowling in partnership with Riaz Farcy or Ravi Sujanani, backed up by David Thompson and Bharat Gohel. There is no restriction on the number of overs a bowler may bowl.
