An awesome outing!
Hi,
I quickly wanted to acknowledge our awesome outing this past Sunday. We played 2 very entertaining matches. Both the teams won a game, so basically everybody went home smiling. The weather wasn't too bad when we started, the cloud cover didn't make us sweat and the going was pleasant. But this good fortune lasted only a match a half and midway through the game Sun came out firing on all cylinders. But still it wasn't too bad and totally worth it.
Team A: Abhijeet, Nandkishore, Venkat, Pankaj, Mallesh, Siddharth and Rajesh
Team B: Arvind, Senthil, Sumeet, Rohin, Prajit, Chandru, Dharmendra and Anand
I hope I have not missed anybody (please pardon me if I did) We started with 4 players per team, then slowly more folk started arriving and before the first innings of the first match was fully underway we had the luxury of having an umpire, a leg umpire and a spectator!
Team B outperformed Team A in the first match in the batting department, but the latter came back and beat the former squarely to win the second game. They won the game by 22 runs.
Team A won the toss and elected to bat. They lost some quick wickets and found themselves ruing the decision. But the duo of Venkat and Pankaj combined well for them. Both the batsmen hit some great shots. I remember one particular over where Venkat nearly lost his ride back (well, you see Senthil was driving). He hit couple of boundaries and a six in that over. You just could not afford to bowl a short ball which was immediately dispatched to the square leg area. The six that he hit appeared very effortless. I thought it may just land in the fielder's hand, but it went well past the rope. Unfortunately for Team A the pair didn't last too long and if I am not mistaken then Venkat departed after ballooning a catch to cover area. Pankaj too batted very well lofting the ball in the in the mid-wicket and square leg region. Pankaj declared his innings allowing his team-mates to have a go at the bowlers. Of the rest Kishore and Siddharth played well and tried to capitalize on the acceleration provided by the middle order. By the time the innings was up Team A had made about 58 (or maybe 57) runs. It was a good defendable total. Team B played effortlessly and ultimately won the game comfortably. There was no star batsman as such from Team B, I think everybody contributed equally. Team A's bowling was great though (in fact both the teams bowled rather well), especially Venkat. You guys might have played him but this was my first time facing him and boy was I stumped (no pun intended). The first 3 deliveries that I faced, left me completely clueless ... when I say clueless, I am not exaggerating... I literally couldn't see the ball. Rohin was keeping the stumps and he warned me. I thought I have faced Manoj, how bad can it get. The first ball was bowled somewhere on the leg, or at east that's what I thought ... I tried to flick it. If you are guessing what happened then you are right I missed it by about an hour. Second ball was ditto. The third ball I was able to connect, but believe me, it was not by design. This time the ball was on the middle stump and my bat happened to be at the right place at the right time (phew!!). The interesting thing is, very similar to Ankur he has a very short runup but boy can he send a quick one. the other bowler who impressed us all was Dharmendra. There was one particular play in the second match where he consistently bowled on the off and troubled Senthil, ultimately claiming his wicket. Arvind who came in to bat after Senthil winked at me and quipped "see the wonders of bowling consistently on the off". Prajit and Rajesh also bowled a very good line and length not allowing the batsman any width.
In the second match Team A again won the toss and decided to ... bat. This time again they batted well and made a similar score (around 57 runs). I think this time around everybody from Team A contributed and everybody played well. Where Team A showed consistency, Team B failed miserably. They could not live upto their earlier performance and their batting collapsed. They kept losing wickets at regular interval. This debacle can be attributed more to Team A's bowling, they were just out of this world. They badly wanted to win the game and this was visible from their body language. We witnessed some great fielding too. Ultimately Team B found itself stranded 22 runs short of the target. The second match belonged to Team A, then owned their opponents and totally redeemed themselves.
Today more than batting we all were impressed by our bowling. There were some chinks in the armor, but nothing that cannot be fixed. I can see the potential. We have some great new bowlers in the form of Venkat, Prajit, Dharmendra and Rajesh and the great thing is they can bat too. We have some hitting power in the form of Venkat, Siddharth, Dharmendra and Pankaj. The new guys (at least for me they are new, for the rest of you they maybe 'old' by now) were upto the task in the fielding department and put the veterans to shame. In fact the joke going around was ...'dekha, ye purana hain, is liye choda' ... 'dekh woh naya hain, jaroor pakdega' ... and sure enough that's what was happening. As always there were some exceptions like Rohin who was outstanding diving all over the place to save the ball from going past him. That reminds me ... this has to be the right up there with some of the best plays we have ever witnessed ... a caught and bold taken by Senthil in the first over of the first match. It was absolutely awesome ... it reminded me of Azharuddin ... which is no mean feat. He was bowling a good line and the batsman was finding it difficult to dispatch the ball. On the last ball, when the batsman thought he had found his mojo and hit the ball over Senthils's head he came in for a rude shock when his vision was brutally cut short and he quickly had to refocus his eyes down on the ground where Senthil was standing. Senthil had taken an awesome catch. It was going fast and was high in the air, he jumped and literally plucked it out of the air. Just imagine the timing ... it was an absolute rocker!! Mallesh too took a great high riser in the point area. I personally would like to mention this one throw which was absolutely out of this world. I have not been instrumental in a run-out in a long time (I mean when I am not the one departing the field with my head down trying to kick myself). I was bowling and the batsman hit the ball in the midwicket region where Arvind was fielding. I think they ran just one run. Siddharth was at the non-striker's end and he had this feeling that he may be able to steal a run from Arvind and even tried to dart to the other end, but fortunately for him he had his doubts and he didn't take his eye off from Arvind, who had pounced on the ball and threw it to me in one swooping action. what a throw it was ... it landed straight in my palm. Everything about the throw was perfect, the timing, the distance from the wicket, the height from the ground ... everything! I didn't have to move an inch, but just collect the ball and touch the stumps. Siddharth had somehow guessed it and had his bat and foot firm in the crease otherwise I would have run a lap with Arvind hoisted on my shoulders.
The games' comic relief was provided by Sumeet when he dropped a 'lalva' (absolutely simple catch) while standing behind the wickets. No sooner the ball ball bounced from his palms Arvind started shouting ... "dekha, purana hain, bola tha". This catch is going to haunt Sumeet for the rest of his life ... ha ha ha (rubbing it in, if you haven't already guessed it)!!
As you can see we had a great outing this past Sunday. Hopefully the rest of you can join us next Sunday.
Have a nice rest of the week.
Bye.
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