Folks - a
Hard fought game on an absolutely scorcher of a day. With temps in the upper
90's with lot of humidity CUCC won the toss with laks replacing Venu for toss
duties. CUCC finally won the toss, after loosing last 3 in a row, and elected
to bat.
The opening bowlers were getting a lot of movement both in the air and off the
pitch to make our lives difficult. Vishnu and Sriram negotiated the openers
very effectively, but we soon lost Vishnu to a brute of a delivery. Sriram was
joined by MichaelP and Sriram by this time was putting away anything loose.
Michael went bout business in his usual style creaming the bad balls and
rotating strike well. after MichaelP fell Gokul joined Sriram and the both
went bout getting 2's and 3's. At break we were 78/2 in 17 overs. This was
soon to become 89 in 20 overs. Not a great score and we needed some big
hitting. Gokul fell trying to raise the tempo and this got Suraj in to bat.
The captain taking a chance on Suraj who was in his element and wanted to get
into the thick of things. And boy did he get into things, from the first ball
he faced we was creaming the ball all over the park. By this time Sriram who
was close to his 50 started going after the bowling. What followed was a
carnage and Sriram and Suraj tore the bowling attack apart. They caused 3
bowling changes in no time as they hit them out of the attack going nearly 12
an over. Sriram fell to a needless run out after making a fine 73 (71 balls).
Suraj followed him soon for a quickfire 40 of just 28 balls. This got Laks and
Arvind into bat. Laks going down the order showed just why he is considered an
excellent bat as he then tore into the attack. Smashing the bowlers all around
the park for another quickfire 33 off just 18 balls. He was the last man out
on the last ball of the game. Arvind gave good support to laks rotating the
strike as well as putting the bad balls away. CUCC hit 128 runs in the last 15
overs and with 217 runs on a ground with short square boundaries we were still
in with a chance. We needed to take our catches and squeeze the runs.
Without any of our regular opening bowlers and with limited options Dileep and
Venu opened the bowling. Venu soon saw edges flying to the short boundaries
and Dileep had a couple taken off him in the first over. The opposition were
off to a flyer with 30 runs off the first 3 overs. That's when Dileep got his
line and length and started troubling the batsmen. He repeatedly kept beating
the bat and cramping up the batsmen. What followed was a brief consolidation
period where Dileep and Venu pulled the scoring rate back quite a bit. Venu
struck in his 4 over to get their opening bat LBW to a marginal decision,
while saw another one, plumb, turned down. Dileep then got going with a ball
that got bigger on the batsman and was caught behind by Gokul. He then rattled
the stumps of their #3 who was bowled around his legs. Both opening bowlers
bowled 7 overs straight and this bought on Laks and Vishnu. Laks stuck with
the very first ball with Venu pouching the catch at slips. But Laks couldn't
get his rhythm and was soon struggling with his line and length. Laks was
replaced by Arvind and along with Vishnu they tied down the batsmen. Vishnu
bowled extremely well, he not only dried up the runs but also stuck with 2
telling blows, with Dileep taking a fine catch on the ropes. We, however,
again dropped their top scorer thrice. Arvind too bowled with great control
and was good cover for Vishnu as they had the batsmen tied up. Laks came back
after Vishnu was finished with his spell. We soon went for a few but came back
with 2 quick wickets and soon they had their last bat in with 21 required off
the last 2 overs. Laks bowled the penultimate and gave 7 runs off it. Last
over they needed 14 runs and CUCC were left to decide who would bowl the last
over. After much contemplation the ball was given to Sriram. Off his second
ball the game should have been over when the batsman was dropped on log on.
What followed was a mighty six and a four to seal our fates.
Excellent batting performance lead by Sriram, Suraj and Laks. While some
fabulous bowling by Dileep, Vishnu and Arvind bought us back into the game. We
dropped a few chances and were left to rue a game we lost, that should have
been won. But kudos to all the 11 on the field for never did anyone believe we
would lose, exemplified by Suraj who dived to stop a 4 and ran into a bench
and still managed to stop it. Good job guys, the win is just around the
corner.