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Stray Lions’ title defence got off to a poor start when they went down by 46 runs to Obuya Academy at Peponi School chasing 194 at the weekend.

The home team struggled with only one of their batsmen (Shubham Jadhav-62) getting past 20 runs.

Steve Biko was the thorn in the flesh for the home team with five for 15 with Elijah Otieno and Protus Asirigwa both picking two wickets.

The visitors’ innings had started on a sour note when they had been reduced to 43 for 4 after 18 overs, but a century stand between siblings Collins Obuya (73) and Kennedy Obuya (35) propelled them to what turned out to be a winning total.

At Eastleigh High School, Dhiren Gondaria scored 114 to lead Kanbis to a six wickets win over Sikh Union. Chasing 239 after Sukdeep Singh had also scored a century (107), Gondaria shared a third wicket stand of 153 with Nelson Odhiambo (67). Mikunj Pindolia was the top bowler for the home team with 4 for 28.

Meanwhile, Cuthi Leva skipper Niraj Patel says he was not discouraged by his side’s loss to Swamibapa in their Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association (NPCA) super league match.

The hosts went down by three wickets with two overs to spare Sunday, after appearing to be in control of the Swamibapa innings for most of the way at Samaj School in Nairobi West.

“This is the start of the season so we will regroup and come back,” said an upbeat Niraj .

“We have a long season with16 more matches to play so there is a lot to play for. We will look at the areas where we went wrong today (Sunday) and lift our game for the upcoming matches.”

Defending 246, Cutchi Leva seemed poised to register their opening win of the season when they had reduced the visitors to 99 for 6 halfway.

However, Nehemiah Odhiambo shared two partnesrhips with Mitesh Sangani and Jignesh Hirani that handed them the tense win.

Odhiambo, who carved out a superb unbeaten 68 put on 80 for the seventh wicket with Sangani before a direct hit from the boundary ended his inning of 47 runs.

At this time, Swamibapa hoped that Hirani would put on something special to save the match and he did exactly that by putting on 23 in an unbeaten eighth wicket stand of 68 runs.

“Hats off to Odhiambo …he played well and took it from us. From the start we knew it was going to be an interesting match. We saw a very exciting match today which went down to the wire,” Niraj said.