Total Domination

It was quite nice outside this past Sunday, wasn’t chilly at all, in fact quite pleasant. Sitting in a shade though you longed for the warmth of the sun. In a word it was perfect for a game of cricket. Ram repeated his feat of being the first one on the ground, he was there at 6:50 AM. He was followed by Chandru who got there at 7:05 and then the rest followed (I am not sure if somebody else was there before Chandru or along with him). By 7:20 our entire team had congregated (quite impressive) on the ground. The other team (OC Stars) was not in sight, they started arriving after about 10 minutes and one phone call. We then took a few minutes to decide the actual playing ground and finally settled on an soccer like field (not a baseball diamond) with a decent flat surface in the middle. (Being at this ground you could not help but appreciate service provided by the city of Irvine, the way they maintain the grounds … outstanding job … hats off them … of course its our tax dollars/rent but still). The other team’s argument was that this afforded us a full 360 degree span. Once that decision was made, out came the stumps, followed by bats, balls and the cones. Normally the Woodbury East (WE) team does this for us, but this time we had to take the initiative. Candru quite promptly, as always, walked towards the boundary to set the cones. He was aided by some of the team members. We unsuccessfully tried to convince the OC Stars to have a 20-over match but they persisted with a  15-over innings and we finally settled down for 16. In addition to the curtailed bowling session, they also requested to strike off the byes. This was a tough one to let go, but they again prevailed. Moving onto the next formality, Venki went for a toss and nailed it. Turning to his team-members he quickly discussed his decision and let the other team know that we would bat. Thinking back it was a good decision. I think batting first we tend to perform better and play without any pressure. Venki decided to repeat last week’s mantra and sent Pankaj and Rajesh to bat. This time we didn’t have coffee so had to make do with some Bourbon biscuits. Since there were no bleachers, everybody was looking for a dry spot to rest their behinds. Amit very graciously offered his jacket and spread it out. With everybody settling down and all of us looking at Chandru hoping he would pick up the score sheet (which he did without anybody asking) Pankaj and Rajesh walked to the middle. It was finally happening, I have been waiting for this match since last Sunday. We haven’t played with this team before, so there were a lot of unknowns and add to this the flaky nature of the pitch, it surely promised an fun filled morning session!

Team composition: Venki (c), Pankaj, Rajesh, Senthil, Dharmendra, Gour, Ram, Rishi, Amit, Chandru and Anand

Partha got a cramp in his calf muscle, so had to sit out after facing couple of deliveries. During fielding Rishi substituted him and helped with the bowling too.

Right from the first ball you could see that Rajesh was going to take it easy and pass on the strike to Pankaj while the latter was going to take the lead. Rajesh spent better half of his initial deliveries studying the bowler and the wicket. To a casual observer it might have appeared as if he was being a bit tentative, but later as Pankaj commented, he was doing the right thing. Even though this pitch was better than the one dished out to us by the ‘WE’ team couple of months ago, it still had its downsides. The odd ball was remaining low on some occasions while and shooting to the wicket-keeper on others. There were some which kept rising and there was one particular delivery (which I faced) which would have made Shane Warne proud. It turned nearly 45 degrees, I was left in an awkward position with bat in front of me and the ball went way down the off stump. Pankaj was hitting the ball very well and scored a boundary. Unfortunately this time, he got out a bit early. As he confessed to us on his return, he played a cross-bat shot and paid dearly for the folly. Last time he played a similar shot and got caught at deep square leg. This time, he could not connect and found his stumps shattered. He made a valuable contribution of 8 runs (off 7 balls … hats off to Chandru for keeping an impeccable score card. He has it down to the number of balls faced by each batsmen … thanks man, Chandru!). Coming in as replacement Senthil decided to carry forward Pankaj’s legacy and hit the ground running. He hit couple of high risers and one of them crossed the boundary line. He was a bit casual in his first shot, otherwise that too would have crossed the boundary. A note over here, we were playing with the green ball, which appears to be as hard as the red one, but it isn't. In fact it is slightly lighter and so doesn’t quite travel .So, the trick was to place the ball in the gaps and not hit over the head. While trying to replicate one of his earlier shots Senthil fell prey to temptation and could not gauge the ball and got his defenses breached. He scored 8 (off 8 deliveries). It was time for Venki to take the mantle and take the score forward. While Pankaj and Senthil were trying to take the charge to the other team, Rajesh was still out there patiently holding the fort from one end. This didn’t mean he was wasting deliveries. He was scoring singles and doubles and on one occasion even a three. Venki’s arrival created a stir in our camp. It was going to be interesting to see what he would do. Based on what Rajesh told us later Venki wanted to turn things around. He wanted Rajesh to quit defending and start attacking.

We had the fire power, he wanted to to put it to good use. Leading from the front Venki began attacking. Unfortunately due to the pitch and the medium to slow pace of the deliveries the ball wasn’t coming onto the bat. And to add to this the lighter ball wasn't traveling far enough. You had to choose your shots properly and place them properly so that you could extract maximum result (for instance the square leg boundary appeared slightly closer and easier to scale). An interesting thing to note about this pair in particular was their running between the wickets. While Rajesh was running the first run quickly to take the elusive second one, Venki didn't appear to be on the same page. At one of point of time when they were running to get 3 runs, both were running in the same direction i.e. towards the same side .. while Venki was still trying to finish the second run, Rajesh was already on his way to complete the third run. As he admitted later, Rajesh had lost count of how many laps he had run and when he saw Venki in front of him and not behind he got a bit confused. That was hilarious and we sitting on the side lines had a good laugh over it. After few deliveries Rajesh found one that got past him and took down his stumps. Finally after playing  a fantastic knock he returned to the dug out having made 10 runs off 17 deliveries. Truly a fine effort. Darmendra joined Venki in the middle. Like last time, they combined very well and kept the score board ticking. They played patiently concentrating on placing rather than going over the head. I remember one shot though, where Dharmendra angled his bat to direct the ball in the covers which was unstoppable and earned him a boundary. That was a fabulous shot and may even be the shot of the day (according to me). One of the characteristics of our innings was that nobody wasted a lot of deliveries and everybody seemed to adapt quite well. Realizing that hitting over the head was going to be risky folks were concentrating on scoring singles and twos. Venki was the first to depart when he nicked one to the wicket-keeper. As Pankaj pointed out, last time he got out by nicking one to the fielder in point and this time to the wicket-keeper. But in his defense, it was a damn good catch. The wicket-keeper took a diving catch which would was more in the first slips. Dharmendra continued his good work in Ram’s company. The latter tried his lofts couple of times and was successful in scaling great heights. But the ball didn’t cover the distance as much and so had to be content with singles and twos. He added 2 runs to the total and got out by giving a catch. I think it was in the long on region. Dharmendra soon followed him when he got a top edge which travelled behind the wicket-keeper and the person in the backward short leg region took a good catch. The bowler was on a  hattrick. With 2 new players in the middle we had a mini collapse. But the 2 new guys, Partha and Gour seemed confident enough. They wee able to ease the pressure by scoring a quick single and this when we got a shock when we saw Partha sitting on the ground trying to massage his calf. He appeared in pain and had to be declared retired hurt. He came back and was replaced by Amit, which I think was the right thing to do. Gour too had to depart quickly when he was run-out. I then joined Amit in his quest to take the team to the magic number mark. I think 8 balls were remaining. I couldn’t connect the first 2 balls which meant we had to slog it out in the last over. We were at 80 run mark. Amit really took the lead over here and was able to connect every single delivery he faced. He did not waste a single delivery and scored a run on each. On the second or third ball he hit a boundary straight down the wicket. He displayed excellent running between the wickets. Finally when the over ended he along with his partner had mad 11 runs. We showed great character and were always in control. Now we had to do the same with the ball.

After a quick 10 minute break the opening pair walked towards the crease. We were all pumped up thanks to our super performance with the bat in the first innings. Venki stated to arrange the field and slowly everybody assumed their positions. The first over fetched 2 runs and the next was a maiden bowled by Gour, who did wonders later on in the match when the going got a bit tough. The run rate was piling and we were already in the third over. The batsmen were desperate to make some runs and they decided to go for some big shots One of the openers, Reddy while trying to steer one on the leg got a top edge ad the ball just ballooned in the air. The bowler made a dash for the ball and held on to it like dear life. We had got our fist wicket. Everybody erupted with joy and ran towards the middle. After Hi-Fis everybody retracted to their positions. After scoring 2 runs off the next delivery Atul, the opener, hit one in Senthil’s direction. Seeing an opportunity Senthil took a shot at the stumps but unfortunately missed. Seeing this the batsmen ran for the second run, but in their hurry they overlooked the fact that Pankaj was backing-up the wicketkeeper and was running in from his deep square leg position. He picked up the ball and without wasting a single minute threw it at the bowler’s end, who did the rest. This gave us our second wicket. We had tasted blood and were baying for more. The going was awesome and we could see the pressure beginning to mount. The next set of bowlers really put the screws on, primary among them being Dharmendra who took 2 wickets in his first over and then followed up with one more in the next over. As Partha was retired hurt Rishi came in as his replacement. He was on the money and bowled to perfection. In fact all the bowlers were very frugal and just refused to give any extras. Maybe that's because standing at mid-off Venki was reminding bowlers not to give away any easy runs. That’s what he kept saying to the bowlers while congratulating them on their good performances. That’s not all that he did standing in that position. He took 2 awesome catches, one of them bouncing off his hand. Pankaj also got a wicket in his first over. I think it came in the form of a catch. Standing at kind of short third-man he took a wonder full running-in catch. After about 6-7 overs half of the team was back in the dug-out and the score was still under 30. We were cruising and I was thinking this is just too easy. That’s when (just like last time) we got a wake-up call. One of their middle order batsmen took couple of our bowlers took to the cleaners and scored big runs. He appeared quite unstoppable. He was pulling, slicing and heaving with great ease. We started to feel the heat a bit, but Venki seemed to know what he was doing. He continued to show confidence in his bowlers and tactics. Praful, in the meantime was able to find the gaps pretty successfully and within a matter of 2-3 overs he brought his team within sights of the target. The tables were slowly beginning to turn. The required run-rate of 7 to 8 per over suddenly stopped climbing and reversed its direction. I was kicking myself for rejoicing too soon. This is when Venki turned to his man Friday.

I am not sure Gour bowled his second over in the opening spell or whether Venki took him off saving him for the last. According to the rules, it was decided that 2 bowlers would be given 4 overs and the rest would be adjusted amongst other bowlers. We all were a bit tensed, as the match was slowly starting to slip away, even though as Venki said later on we still could have managed as Praful appeared to be the lone warrior. I was standing at fine leg and could see Gour come in to bowl. His first ball was a dot ball. The next one also was a dot ball I think and on the third ball he struck gold! Praful, the danger man couldn’t keep this one down and hit straight towards Venki. It shot like a bullet and Venki displaying great reflex action caught it one swift move. All of us jumped couple of feet in the air and ran towards the center. We felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. Venki’s master stroke of bringing Gour in as a change had paid off handsomely. I am not sure but I seem to have this feeling that Gour got one more wicket in that over. Even though Praful was back with his teammates,  we were still not out of the woods. The pair in the middle seemed to be their last recognized pair, which meant they still could do damage and inflict pain. I am not sure how much they would bleed us, but definitely it wasn’t time to become complacent. I think Venki concurred and he persisted with Gour who took the next danger man (Sangram) out with a beautiful yorker. Sangram while on his way back to the sidelines was ruing the fact that he couldn’t see it coming and lamented it in as many words to his fellow players. Things had certainly started to look up now. With their last pair on the field and they needing 31 runs to to cross the finish line Venki befittingly turned to Amit. I couldn’t think of a better bowling replacement. Amit had done a marvellous job with the bat in the last over were he scored 8 odd runs off just 4 balls (strike rate of 200!!). His first delivery was right in the block hole and to the batsman's dismay was a yorker which uprooted his stumps and just like that we won the match!!

Save for Praful nobody posed any real challenge. In defense of the other team they showed great courage and did not give up till the last minute. They did stage a mini comeback both while bowling and batting. During bowling their fielders held on to the catches which they had dropped during the initial stages. They were fielding with more gusto and appeared charged up. During batting too they nearly pulled a fast one on us and had it not been for our wily bowlers it would been a bit embarrassing for us.

As far as our performance is concerned we played to near perfection. There were very few extras (only 6 or 8 or maybe even under 5), fielding was on dot. There were couple of misfields but we made up for it by doing a  great job of backing-up. We held onto all our catches. Three that come to my mind were taken by Pankaj, Rishi and Venki. Standing at long off Rishi pulled off a stunner when he came in running and caught one and did not let it go even as he was falling down. Pankaj did the same earlier while standing at short third-man and Venki took two outstanding catches standing in the same position with one of them being the key wicket of Praful and as somebody said was the turning point of the match. Gour, unfortunately got out a bit early but made up for it with his bowling by getting 2 (maybe 3 wickets), one of them being the key wicket of danger ma Praful. Amit played a great cameo in the end scoring 8 off 4 and then taking the last man down with a superb yorker. Chandru didn’t get to bat, but he was outstanding behind the wickets. Not withstanding the relaxed byes rule, he did his best to stop the balls in their tracks not letting them continue past him. He had just couple of slips. If I am not mistaken he took one caught behind too. He did a great job. Our batting was outstanding with Pankaj and Rajesh giving us a decent start. Our top and middle order performed really well with Venki and Dharmendra carrying on the good work started by the openers and Senthil.  We had a slight collapse towards the end but the lower order came through. Dharmendra yet again proved to be our best man scoring 18 off 22 (with one boundary) and claiming 3 wickets. He once again was our Man of the Match!

We had a great time sitting on the sidelines and on our way back had an impromptu meeting in the parking lot. I am not sure how we got to discussing movies, but suddenly Balayya and Vijaykant took center stage and Venki, Ram and Rajesh entertained us with some funny scenes from the movies. Coming back I looked up Balayya and sure enough found this one. There were quite a few that we discussed, but this should sum things up pretty well … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwCJcHgH2qQ

We will resume our weekly games next Sunday, hope to see you guys back on the field. Have a nice rest of the week.

Bye.

Anand

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Short Stories

The backstager - Anand 

Anand always seems to take a backstage in praising his achievements.  Even in this match (& blog) he missed out the critical things including that he opened the bowling for our team and did take the first wicket & was pretty economical as well.  Instead of his name he just keeps "the bowler" or "the batsman".  So this one just for you Anand !!! 

The Real Dug Out fun 

The real action is in the middle but the real fun is in the dug out - during our batting.  We had some very silly games, jokes, comments on the long run-up of the bowlers and lots of giggles.  I am sure everyone will agree that you really need to be there to feel how relaxing those moments are.  The next item will mention how funny they are. 

The strategist - Ram 

While we had lost 2-3 wickets Ram had padded up for the charge.  The plan was to hit the ball hard.  And a plan was made in the dug out.  Ram went in and tried a few shots however the ball didn't clear the boundary  & so he had to run.  After two such shots he pulled his hamstring and within a flash Rajesh was on the crease as his runner.  The entire dug-out burst into huge laugh.  The opposition team sensed the plan and did resist but eventually allowed the runner. The trick had worked :)

5 wides - No way  

The rules for this game were pretty interesting. No byes which was fine but wide will fetch only one run even if the ball is missed by keeper and goes for boundary.  Not that it mattered much as both the teams' keeper did a wonderful job and were pretty neat. 

Cricket Craze

While the opposition team was arriving at the park we already had started practice.  A desi senior citizen (No offense plz) made his way on the ground and initially we thought that maybe he saw us playing and wanted to play/bowl a ball or two.  To our surprise he was part of the opposition team eleven - yes he was.  Unfortunately he didn't get a chance to face a ball as he was the last man & was stranded on the other end.

Amit