We started off at VCP8 against King of Kings with
bright sunshine and lots and lots of wind. Venu lost the toss and CUCC were sent
into field. We started with our old warhorse Madhura and young colt Sunil. The
veteran Madhura ready for a challenge, as always, bowling uphill and against
some extremely strong winds. Struggled initally but got his line and length soon
enough to trouble the batsmen. While Sunil started off well hitting the right
line from the word go. Sunil was first to strike getting their opener with a
dubious leg before decision after being turned down couple of times when the
batsmen were plumb (according to Dileep - Plum) in front. Madhura soon got into
action removing the other opener thx to a sharp catch in the slips by venu.
Their next 2 batsmen went around carting our bowlers with sunil being unlucky as
2 catches were dropped off his bowling in the slips. Their top scorer should
have been out to sunil even before getting off the mark, but unfortunately sunil
ended up with only one wicket to his tally. Meanwhile Madhura got their no4 Leg
before after having been hit for a couple. Both Madhura and Sunil ended their
spells going 7 overs straight. The change saw KD and Dileep come into bowl - KD
coming on from the end Madhura was bowling. Both bowled with great control and
kept troubling the batsmen, and managed to dry the runs out. The batsmen trying
to free the shackles only managed to get themselves out. Thanks to Madhura's
suggestion we had their big hitter caught in the deep by Madhura himself (a boob
juggling and ball juggling catch in the deep, spectacularly done/pulled off) to
a smart fielding change. From then on KD and Dileep rolled over the opposition.
While Dileep was repeatedly being rejected for the PLUM leg before appeals, KD
just kept knocking stumps over. Sriram took a juggling catch in the deep to keep
the pressure on the opposition. Prabhu came in as the 5th bowler and just needed
4 balls to wrap up the tail, with Gokul executing an excellent stumping and
their num 11 had no clue to Prabhu's outswinger!!?? first ball. Prabhu would be
on a hat trick first ball of his next game. Excellent bowling by Dileep and KD
to get the opposition out cheaply and some good catches taken, we still dropped
3 catches we should have held, captain being guilty of droping one of them. King
of Kings were all out for 145 with 6+ overs left.
CUCC Knew only half the job was done and started off with Prabhu and Gokul. We
got off to the worst possible start with Prabhu being caught behind first ball
fo the game. The opening bowlers were bowling accurately and with quite some
venom to keep our batsmen on the defensive. Gokul and MichaelP negotiated the
initial overs with great caution. Just when the bowlers were tiring Gokul lost
his leg stump trying to flick a ball wasting all the hard work he had put in. We
were about 26/2 at the end of 10 overs. This bought KD in to bat who enjoyed a
good day with the ball. MichaelP and KD then put on the best partnership of the
game starting of sedately and then carting the bowlers all over. They put
together 103 runs in no time and Michael bought up his well deserved half
century. Not to forget mentioning his fiancee was on the sidelines to cheer as
well (maybe we should get her to all games mikey plays!!!). Tired from the
Marathon innings and in trying to finish the game early Michael holed out. We
had a minor blip loosing Arvind without scoring but Sriram joined KD to wrap the
game up. By this time KD was already hustling us over the finish line and bought
up his 50 in the mean time. KD remained unbeaten on 57 to see CUCC home by 6
wkts. Yet another clinical win for CUCC taking league record to 5-0 and CUCC
record to 13-0.
Excellent bowling by KD and Dileep and some good batting by MichaelP and KD.
Some great glovework by Gokul.
Good Job guys lets keep the momentum going... Now off to Soundview to play
sussex.