6th Game - An Easy Day On The Field

It all started in the morning with all our team members ready and raring for the match waiting eagerly at the railway gate ..... yes the captain and the team were just outside the ground for close to 20 mins.We all reached the ground,and were very sure on not to repeat the last match fielding performance.

Captain Rajiv won the toss and didn't have any second thought in electing to field first.Well begun is half done and that's what rajiv and bala did for our team.Rajiv left the batsmen fishing at the crease while Bala evoked fear with his rising deliveries.He bowled his 3 for mere 9 runs and picked up a wicket ( stumps cart wheeling)..Rajiv made a quick change to bring me in at the end of 4th over assuming the new ball would swing outside and the batsmen would play for off spinners... but couldnt fox the batsmen.. I floated a couple of deliveries and that was well timed by the batsmen to the boundary. the remaining balls were the quicker ones that swung away from the batsmen who edged and missed.

Then came the move of the day when Girish came into attack.Aplomb was his bowling ...and most of his medium pace deliveries were beating the batsmen repeatedly and they never had any clue whatsoever.He also managed to effect an agile runout of his own bowling.

Param joined hands with him with some tight spin bowling and he picked up 3 wickets (bowled,caught by fielder & lbw) out of his quota of 4 overs by conceding 22 runs with a tight field set where the bastmen could hardly find any boundary which was the need of the hour for them. As the slog overs came in Rajiv called me back to finish of my quota of overs and the innings as quick as possible and i effectively replied to him by picking 2 wickets (bowled) and finished my spell conceding 24 runs.This time i made sure that no floaters were provided for easy picking and mean while Rajiv joined me in from the other end completed his 4 overs giving away 13 runs.They ended their innings at 104. Considering the time involved for the batsmen had to make to the middle which is nearly 200 mts from the pavilion and the mins in between overs, we managed to finish off 20 overs within the allocated time of 1hr and 20 mins which is to be appreciated. This was possible cos of Quick field changes and swift movers on the field in between overs. The energy was quite visible among our players.

Since we all were sure that we should not drop catches and misfield that occupied most of us in the previous match, We didnt misfield nor drop any catches in this match, but our fielders went on a defensive by not attempting few catches, bala being one who couldnt run in for a difficult chance, thanks to his ankle sprain. Efforts of Sundar and nithi on the field has to be appreciated.

It was our turn to chase 105 in 20 overs. Our in form opener Shivaram and "Appu" praveen started the innings in a positive manner.Shiva continued from where he left in last match and was in amazing touch .The balls flew to boundaries very regularly and kept the umpires busy. Shivaram's cut, pull and coverdrives were a stand out in today's knock. Praveen trying to switch into aggressive mood played a faulty pull shot whiche dragged from outside the off stump that costed his wicket.Bala went in and joined shiva aptly in the run chase. Both ensured that the target was minimized to a larger extent before he lost his wicket.By then Rajesh and I were padded up waiting for our chances to have a go since there were few dollies been thrown to the batsmen by the bowlers. Bala helped thier cause by giving away his witcket to innocous delivery.

28 runs needed to win when I walked in to bat. I was offered some wide deliveries and fulltoses to improve the scoring rate further and i obliged them with hits to the fence and one catching practice in between which they failed to capitalise on it. Just when the match was about to get over with 5 needed to win Shiva threw his wicket because of tiredness and in walked the "Inzy"Rajesh to finish it off with his presense. He was obliged a waist high full toss which he hammerred to midwicket to mark the victory. Thus 105 was chased in 16 overs.

Shivaram played an astounding innings of 67 and won the MOM. He looked in terrific touch and was a lot assured at crease. Keep up your good work mate. All the bowlers bowled well and the ground fielding was refreshing. Nithi was very attacking while fielding, but I wonder how most of the balls went to him alone in the past 2 matches, he got to be a bit rationale while attacking the ball and he can prove his fielding credentials even while backing up for a throw from the other end, which he always forgets to... fortunately no runs were conceded. We have made efforts to correct ourselves very fast from the previous match mistakes.

A good team effort...

" FIVE out of SIX and our place in the Final is FIXED "

Hail Criccruisers..

Blog By

Koushick.

5th GAME - CRUISED along with BLIPS

Folks

Apologies for the delay in updating the fifthe match.

Lets start by thanking the guest players (too many for this match) Yuvraj(Amex),Baba,Harish.
Rajiv was the stand in skipper for the match and he duly lost the toss. The opponent chose to bat first and this was a match where we played with lot of FAT and Cholestrol charactersied by mis fields, dropped catches, no balls and freehits resulting in boundaries.
Rajiv and Baba shared the new ball. Rajiv started the match by picking the wicket. The batsman was caught PLUMB in front with rajiv achieving some late swing which did the batsman. Baba on the other complimented Rajiv by picking a wicket in his first over. The score at the end of seven overs read as 31/3, Baba being the wrecker in chief with 2 wkts.
Bala was brought in as first change he duly obliged by picking a wkt of his first ball. Bala was tight as usual bowling to a tight field set primarily on the off...

Harish was introduced from the other end and he started by bowling some jappers which were tooo good for the batsman. His second over though was a mixed one with three boundaries scored with the other three deliveries were unpalayable.
The score at the end of 13th over 85/4 clearly showing the bowling and the fielding effort.
Kouschik who normally bowls tightly gave away runs ata fair clip. But catches were dropped (bot dollies) in his bowling with Sunder and Rajive being the culprits. To add insult to the injury over throws were the order of the day while he was bowling. He ended conceding 32 runs in his alloted 4 overs. Yours truly also bowled couple of overs without any success giving away 14 runs in 2 overs.
The opponent scored 132 runs ( atleast 30 runs more than what they deserved) and this certainly looked a stiff target,but we were confident because of the fact that the ground was too small for all our players.

shivram and Bala opened the innings and bala kicked off the inning exactly the way we wanted to start by hitting a boundary of the forst ball of our inning. The Run rate never came below 7.5 and shivram was in to his element scoring 17 boundaries in his knock of 83. Bala on the other end complimented shivram by rotating the strike well. Bala fell when the score was nearing 90. Baba was sent in as Rajiv thought that not enough runs were there for RAJESH to show his batting prowess.
We won the match in the 16th over finished by shivram in his typical fashion......boundary hoiked in the direction of mid wicket.....

Shivram turned the so called mountain into a mole through his clean hitting and his knock did not give any oppurtunity fot the bowling side. After the initial 5 overs they were just going through thier motions.

Though we won the game convincingly, we have to pull our socks up in the fielding and the bowling department. We missed bowler like param who gives a different dimension to our attack with his left arm spin. Batting looks strong as we still had Rajesh, Rajiv,Koushchik waiting to pad up. fileding is certainly an area of concern as we have to be more consistent in our efforts.

Lets enjoy the most convincing victory that we have had after the first game of the tournament!!!!

Rgds
Girish