Nasser's first match at the helm of the President's XI could not have gone 
any smoother. Penn, who have a history of arriving late, arrived just as
we 
were putting the final nails in the matting. Nasser won the toss and
elected 
to bat. From nailing down the matting, we could see that in the two weeks 
since we had played there last VCP3 was much harder and that the bounce 
should be truer. Mushtaq and Vishnu opened the innings against Penn's 
skipper, Sumeet, aptly nick-named "sumo". He was puffing on a cigarette 
until the first ball had to be bowled, so it was no surprise to see him
bowl 
a very gentle medium pace off of a run up of 3-4 steps. Our openers
treated 
him with respect in his first over, but Vishnu launched into him
thereafter. 
He was promptly taken out of the attack, and the other opening bowler, 
Vicky, and the change bowler, Jai, were both fairly decent. Both had fair 
line and length, and were generating the odd quicker ball. However, Mushy 
and Vishnu built a mature opening stand that would serve as the foundation 
of our innings. They played out a couple of maidens, but then started 
dispatching any loose ball that they got to the boundary. By the 10the
over, 
when Sumo came back in, we had an opening stand of 63 runs. At this point, 
though, he struggled to bowl a ball on the matting, ot Mushy, and what we 
feared would happen. After a string of six consecutive wides, he bowled a 
straight one, and had Mushy trapped plumb in front. No matter though, as 
Nasser, the club's man in form, entered, and was confident from the first 
ball. He shared a short stand with Vishnu, before he too was trapped lbw,
a 
brief partnership with Jay followed, and then Nasser and Siva built the 
stand that made our innings. They beat up on all of Penn's bowlers, taking 
quick singles, and an ample share of boundaries. The feature of Nasser's 
innings was a straight six, that was actually still climbing as it passed 
the cones. When we passed our 200 in the 29the over, and only 3 wickets 
down, Nasser declared his innings at 70. Following up a 75 against Staten 
Island last week, out skipper is looking good. Siva was declared in the
next 
over as well, for a well crafted 34.

At this point, the question was whether we were going to be able to make
it 
to the imposing 250 mark. And when the scoring slowed in the next over, 
there was some doubt. But the hitting picked up again, and a flurry of mad 
hitting from Rishi, Rizwan and Malik (who was especially effective, with
12 
runs from 3 balls!), took us to 259 in our 35 overs.

From the looks on the faces of the Penn boys, this was always going to be
a 
tough target to chase. And that was made even tougher, given the start
that 
they got. In stark contrast to my last outing, my first ball was bang on 
target, trapping Penn's opener lbw with the first ball of their innings. 
Their other opener looked stronger and took advantage from any short 
delivery that he got from Imran or me so that their scoring rate was
always 
good. But Nasser decided that he was going to bowl Imran and me straight 
through, and by the time those 14 overs were up, 5 wickets were gone. This 
was highlighted by some superb slip catching, with Vishnu taking one very 
low in first slip off of Imran, and Nasser taking a stunner, diving to his 
left in second slip, off of me. Ashok replaced me, and while he bowled a 
series of wides and no-balls, when he did bowl one on target, he was 
effective. He had two wickets in his first over, with another great catch 
being taken by Siva, and then after a brief lull came with 8 wickets down, 
the introduction of Mushtaq into the attack ended the match very swiftly.

Just a word of caution to all the President's men. Great victory, but a
look 
at the bowling figures shows you that we still aren't' bowling as well as
we 
should, and are also gifting away many extras. And though we took three 
sensational catches, we did also let two fall. But it's nice to come back 
from the loss to Princeton with a win like this!

Scorecard:
CUCC vs. U.Penn at VCP3
Saturday, April 28
Toss: Columbia

Columbia innings:
Mushtaq                 lbw  sumeet 16(25)
Vishnu                  lbw jay     33(43)
Nasser                  not out     70(60)
Jay                     lbw   basit 18(23)
Siva                    not out     34(31)
Rizwan                  b vicky     12(10)
Ashok                   not out      6(6)
Malik                   run out     12(4)
Rishi                   b vicky      8(6)
Imran                   not out      0(0)
Asad                    dnb
Extras-lb 9 b 13 nb 6 w 26          54
Total (in 35 overs)                259/6

sumeet      7/0/41/1
vicky       7/1/37/2
jay         7/1/53/1
varam       4/0/25/0
basit       6/0/51/1
akshay      3/0/18/0
fahd        1/0/15/0

Penn innings:
basit                   lbw Asad           0(1)
akshay                  lbw Imran         27
fahd                    c Vishnu b Imran  15
vicky                   c Nasser b Asad    6
varun                            b Imran   0(1)
amar shah                        b Ashok   4(25)
sidharth                         lbw Ashok 22(16)
sumo                    c Siva   b Ashok   0(3)
vidit                   caught & b Mushtaq 23
rehan                            b Mushtaq 10
jai                                not out 2
Extras- 26w 11nb 1lb                      38
Total (in 22.5 overs)                     149 all out
Asad        7/0/40/2
Imran       7/0/35/3
Ashok       3/0/35/3
Jay          2/0/9/0
Shiva       2/0/13/0
Mushtaq   1.5/0/18/2

Columbia win by 110 runs