Marching Ahead - 4th Game

Eight thirty in the morning i get a call from Mr.Koushik and in my deep sleep i heard him saying "macha nethu enaku oru accident aachu da...kaalla adi...naan pad katti odi paathen da veetla, but ennala oda mudila da...so naan varala da match ku inniku" nu sonnan... so i called up srikumar to inform him to arrange for a back up player and immediately he arranged for one in the form of leggie Alex, and i thought of arranging Harish (girish's bro) and he confirmed his availability too... when i called appu he cried in support of Alex and said "dai dai...he left his badminton session in between and he is ready to come with us da" nu ivan azhudhaan... now i got into a tangle between appu and girish!! As usual i fell on to my colleagues feet and apologised him and told him to inform his bro to take rest at home and play with his newly born kid !!!

When i was on my way to the ground, i get a call from Koushik again asking me to buy a sponge for him, i was thinking why the hell i should buy... then go and give it to him whos at his residence!!! but i heard params voice next to him and i asked him where the hell he was??? to my surprise this bugger was at the ground and all set to play!! now confusion started again...we were 12 of us at the venue(A.M Jain College) and so the confusion of whom to be left out arouse!!! all our eyes turned towards one player as soon as this confusion came up... The Man, The Machine... Nithi.

Toss, well this time not between the players to choose who is in and who is out!!! cos Nithi as generous as he has been ever, opted to sit out considering the importance of the game. koushik was in, but not without a promise from the management end to Nithi that he will feature in our following matches !! And he did believe!! :)

We had couple of changes in the side, Alex came in place of Ranga and Krishna in place of Bala.

3rd time Lucky at the toss for our skipper and we chose to field first considering a fast outfield and the failure of defending the score in the last match, since this is a crucial match in the teams standing on the Table we wanted to be normal and not take any chances. CTS having won 4 of their 5 encounters are on top and the team we were up against, Elite Stars had won 3 of their 4 games who was actually in the 2nd spot in the table. If we win this match we will move on to the 2nd position by pushing our opponents down to three... Our fingers were crossed to win this encounter to retain our hopes of topping the table.

The start was fantastic as usual, with me and appu( a surprise package ) opened with the new ball, and the pitch seems to be in perfect length finally. We made sure to make life bitter for the batsmen in the middle with outswingers from one end and inswinging deliveries from the other. Eventually we bagged a wicket in the very 2nd over. Appu ticking his wicket column. Bowlers were literally on the batters toes and nailed them right till the 10th over where their Runrate was less than 4 an over.

Girish having missed out to bowl in the previous encounter at Teachers B, got a chance to bowl his full quota of 4 overs who showed grit and fitness levels by completing his spell with 4.5 an over. In a 20-20 game its a splendid performance from the old warhorse, which includes a freehit in which the opponents failed to make their mark.

To everyones surprise our skipper Srikumar threw the ball to the bigman Rajesh, who stunned everyone with couple of wickets in his very first over, which paid much dividends for the team and credits to the Skipper. He ended up with two wickets and an economy rate of 6 per over.

As usual param was fantastic from one end, with a gr8 support behind the stumps from shivram, the overs flew past where the ball were exchanged only between the bowler and the keeper. 3rd over from Param saw couple of boundries being hit on to the leg side with a sloggish sweep and neatly played shot on to the midwicket boundary from the opponent Captain who got himself runout. For us he was the only threat who could have taken the score past 120.

The bowling options were handled well by the skipper and infact it looked like he had ample choices to throw the ball at to have a go in the last four overs, but he had it covered with a simple and a better choice and not being extravagant by bringing back the fast bowlers which might have taken more time in running through the final overs.

Till the 14th over they had a runrate of only 4/over which eventually increased to 5 an over, which is bound to happen in any 20-20 game irrespective of the quality in the batting line-up. Runrate of 5 an over will be happily accepted with both hands by any fielding side and so did we. They ended up scoring 111/6 in their full quota of 20 overs. Rajesh being the pick of the bowlers. Fielding efforts of Nithi who came in as a substitute has to be appreciated.

Abhi and appu went into bat and started scoring 5 an over right from the word go, bulk of scoring having done by Abhi and appu playing a secondary role. the latter got out to a rank shot delivery by trying to hook it but he found himself caught at deep fine leg boundary and made him to feel for the shot he played right till the end of the game !! thanks to me for reminding him again and again.. :)

The big man Rajesh went in next with lots of expectations from his team mates, since he failed to show his fireworks in the previous encounter. This time he made sure of displaying his regained strength by hitting a " FLAT " six to the square leg boundary which flew off from the bottom of his bat and a straight six off a full toss. After those two hits he shut shop for his greedy viewers by scooping a dolly to the bowler.

Wicky Shivram went in to join Abhi who was maintaining the runrate at the other end. The pair scored twos and odd boundaries every other over which gave us a thought the match will be a cake walk for us. In the middle overs we infact had a runrate of upper 5 an over with just 2 wickets down.

But we witnessed two quick wickets in the form of shivram and abhi with koushik and me in the middle, we had another 25 odd runs to claim victory with 5 overs remaining. When we needed 2 runs for a win, I got out trying to cut the ball which was bowled too close to the body which disturbed the timber.

When i came in i saw param all set to leave, in his shorts and slippers with his bag assuming the match wouldnt require his batting skills. Krishna went in next and lack of match practice was visible from the way he was searching the ball and he got caught in front of the wickets the very second delivery he faced. Suddenly the fall of wickets gave a thought to the opponents that they could pull this off with 2 runs remaining, but they never knew that we had a an opening batsman intact who is yet to show his cover driving abilities, which eventually was the shot from srikumars willow which brought home a victory for us. With an over to spare, We won by scoring the same runs which we scored in our previous game "114".

Abhi our team's overseas player was adjudged Man of the match for his match winning 36 and gr8 fielding abilities.

So now we stand closer to CTS's throat and on Elite Stars head by having 3 victories under our belt out of 4 encounters with three crucial matches to be played. Victory in those would take this amateur team to win its first maiden title of 2008-2009 season. I know its too early to say, but predicting and aiming goes hand in hand!!

HAIL CRIC CRUISERS !!


Blog By

Rajiv. M