An increasingly rampant CUCC Sunday XI took the bull by
the horns and never let go this past Sunday, albeit being one weapon short. On
what developed into a beautiful day for cricket, the ten-member side turned up
early (relative to earlier seasons as well as earlier this season) and had the
mat laid down well before the scheduled start time of 1 PM, although our captain
demanded even earlier arrivals from his team and rightly so, considering his
goal of better preparing the team for these combats. The fact that his
propensity for C.I. - continuous improvement - was making it more and more
difficult for him to see eye to eye with some members of the team did not deter
him one bit.
As winning habits go, Lakshmanan called right yet again and walked back from the
pitch with a spring in his steps fit enough for a pogo-stick entrant into Limca
Book of Records. The fielding drills were called to an abrupt halt as focus
shifted to batting. The opposition, the Middletown Bullets, seemed to be a
sprightly bunch of young guns, looking eager and anxious to cross swords with,
or should we say point muzzles at, their rivals. CUCC, trying out a new opening
pair to give everyone sometime in the middle, brought back Arvind to open with
Gokul. The match started amidst concerns over the authenticity of one of the two
umpires, especially considering the fact that the other umpire came in Half way
through the first over, there were early indications that the match might not be
much unlike a bullet train headed for its destination at many times its own
normal, frantic velocity. It was as if the 21 cricketers had heard a gunshot as
opposed to the usual and more stoic call of "Play" from the umpire. As
Gokul seemed to be continuing from where he left off the previous day,
unleashing a flurry of strokes on both sides of the wicket, Arvind fell
attempting to cut a ball square and only managing to hit it straight into the
hands of a very valid point. In walked Siva, custom bat in hand. But there was
certainly nothing customary about the way he met the ball with middle of his
bat, almost as soon as he joined Gokul in the middle. He soon found himself
walking back, adjudged LBW, as he missed a ball that pitched on middle stump and
was headed toward the middle of his fifth stump. This brought Lakshmanan to the
pitch and a bowling change saw Ali bringing his stay at the crease to a very
premature end. Lakshmanan was caught- in more ways than one - in his crease as
he displayed a very rare tentative and even rarer inelegant, push which ensured
that the ball caught the edge of the bat. So far, three wickets had fallen from
a mere eight overs with the score at fifty six. Gokul at the other end kept
attacking the opposition with a brace of fours and looking good for another big
score. But the madness continued with Gokul falling soon thereafter, to yet
another dubious LBW decision, to another change in bowling that brought Zahid,
the left handed bowler, to the battle. 65/4 in nine. Prabhu's two-over long
vigil with Vishnu, who had just witnessed two of his team mates perish, was
rudely disturbed by the sound of the ball breaking Prabhu’s wicket. Things
were moving at such a frantic pace that it seemed to many as if runs were
falling and wickets were pouring. The captain, Venu, got on this speed train
with the score reading 73/5 in twelve. Was he to continue operating under haste
or impose a sense of sanity to the proceedings! The answer came very soon as he
managed the unmanageable ... a perfect marriage of the two approaches. What
followed was a measured assault on most of the bowlers he faced, except Ali. Ali
bowled irritatingly accurately and emerged as the single Bullets bowler who had
"to be seen off" on the day. But a combination of a bizarre bowling
change that took him out of the attack prematurely, one of the most mature
batting performances CUCC has experienced in its ranks in while was exhibited by
Vishnu, and Venu's usual flamboyance meant that CUCC was beginning to turn the
barrel pointed to their face away from it. By the time Venu was through, the
partnership had almost doubled CUCC's total from seventy three to a hundred and
forty one. Suraj, who seems to have found a long-lost friend in his lower order
batting spot, had a tailor-made situation welcoming him to just do what he has
become adept at doing very well this season. And that he did!! But not before
Vishnu fell trying to up the ante with a fiercely attempted pull at a rare short
ball which only resulted in a top-edge followed by a well-called and judged
catch by the wicket keeper, Iftikar. Vishnu missed what would have been an
extremely well-deserved fifty that was worth a lot more that its
"score-card value" to CUCC in this match and beyond. Suraj (remained
unbeaten on a very well made 46 as he made sure CUCC went home with a good
total) and Sriram continued the onslaught to take their team to 232/7 in the
allotted thirty five overs, a total that by all means qualifies as defendable on
VCP3.
The Bullets opened their batting with Moid and Sunny, with the latter seemingly
using Russian roulette as an inspiration for his batting. While Venu managed to
hit Moid's pad in front of the wicket before he had a say in the matter, Dileep
acted as the solitary bullet in Sunny's pistol that was destined to fire any
moment. Sunny did manage to connect two lusty blows over long on in the process
that accounted for 89% of his score. This double blow first brought Iftikar,
a.k.a. "Iffi" to the crease to merciless sledges suggesting that his
nickname suited his batting style, who was soon joined by Aman. The two seemed
intent on playing risk less cricket and managed to do so for three overs until
Venu, in a fashion that is so indicative of one of the many reasons why we all
have come to love this sport so much, managed to produce that one magic ball
that would bounce on the off stump and cut just enough to beat the bat of a top
order batsman. Half a second later, one could not have been blamed for wondering
if they were part of a cricket match happening in the 18th century as only two
stumps stood on the ground with a solitary bail still majestically perched on
top of them. This wicket opened up the proverbial floodgates that eventually
damned the Bullets, for what followed was a deluge of wickets taken by Dileep
clarifying for one and all the etymology of the word spell used in the context
of bowling. His left-arm in-swingers, though not as potent as they were during
the previous weekend, mesmerized batsmen enough this time around to give him
wickets even off his other variations. It was also worth mentioning that his
pace had picked up a few yards, as evident from Gokul attempting to stand up to
his bowling in order to prevent the well-set Iffi from leaving his crease only
to head back after one ball that bounced and took off before he had an
opportunity to get his gloves behind it. Much as one six-fer is hard to come by,
two of them in back-to-back matches is an achievement at any level.
Interestingly between these two performances Dileep has been on a hat-trick
thrice, needless to say he is still on a hat-trick for three consecutive
six-fers. Dileep's seven overs - with ample assistance from Sriram who
"squeezed" three good catches - ensured that the Middletown Bullets'
batting scorecard was effectively reduced to little more than a telephone
directory specializing in displaying toll-free numbers. Iffi was the only one to
even reach double digits and scored more than half of his team's total tally of
ninety one. His fifty was a personal consolation for having played sensibly and
skillfully.
With only a match or two of regular season to go, CUCC is looking better than
most times to not just enter the playoffs but also make a firm statement
therein.
On this occasion, though, the Bullets failed to hit the mark with
"Matrix"-like inaccuracy even as their targets more than just dodged
them with Neo-esque martialism.