Match 2 of 3 against Strikers on 09272009 (Game 6)

The second match of the series was played at Cypress Canyon Ground (Big). The pitch was dry, seemed good for batting and the outfield was slightly wet.

Strikers won the toss once again and elected to field first. Vijay S and Suresh opened the batting and the first two overs produced 20 runs. Vijay S pierced the off side field repeatedly and Suresh too seemed to have got a hang of the pitch. Suresh was caught behind in the third over being bowled by Shiva resulting in Hari walking to the crease. Vijay S got stuck into Haran in 4th over striking two boundaries towards fine leg. Both these were good looking shots and were not in the typical area that Vijay S usually hits his boundaries. Hari stood at the non-striker's end all through the over and in the next played a few dot balls. Hari then launched Shiva for a boundary over point that raced to the boundary despite the slow outer field. Vijay S (24, 23b, 2*4, 1*3) was held at point on the first ball of the 6th over being bowled by Pradeep. Parag joined Hari and played out the over having been offered two no-balls amidst the usual tight bowling of Pradeep. 42/2 in 6 overs was an excellent start made possible by the positive approach and bright start provided by Vijay S and Hari on what was a good batting strip. Vijay S, playing a game after a six week break, seemed to be in good batting form.

Hari struck Narasaiah for two boundaries in the 7th. The first was struck towards cover whereas the second was a lofted straight drive over the bowlers head. Five wides and two boundaries meant that a useful 15 runs were accumulated in a single over. Pradeep bowled another quiet over at the other end conceding just 4 runs. A bowling change was necessary resulting in Kishore being introduced into the attack. Hari struck a good looking boundary towards extra-cover and Parag pulled one towards fine leg bringing 12 runs in the 9th over. Another quiet over from Pradeep yielding just 3 runs resulted in us going into the break at 76/2.

The first over after the break was bowled by Narasaiah and yielded 9 runs with Hari picking up a couple of twos and Parag hitting one fine on the leg side for a well run three. Ajay bowled the 12th over conceding just a single and tested Hari with his good line and length. Parag struck a two and a boundary towards square leg on the first two balls of the 12th over but hit one to square leg to be dismissed by Narasaiah for a 4th time in 6 games. Parag (18, 24b, 2*4, 1*3) featured in a 52 run partnership with Hari in 44 balls. Hari played a dominant role in the partnership hitting boundaries and quite a few twos.

Rupesh joined Hari at the crease and the next two overs were relatively quiet yielding just 8 runs. After 15 overs the score read 101/3 meaning at 8 an over from there on a score of 140 was a possibility. Rupesh launched two boundaries in the 16th over being bowled by Haran. The first was struck straight piercing long-on and long-off. The second was struck towards fine leg taking the score to 113. Shiva conceded a boundary to Rupesh and three twos to Hari, thereby giving away 12 runs in the 17th over taking the score to 125/3. The 18th over was fruitful, the highlight being a straight shot from Rupesh that sailed over Gopal at long-on. It looked like a six from our position outside the ropes at point but was called a four by those close to where the ball landed. Pradeep picked up Hari caught behind, in the 19th over that yielded just six runs. Hari played a superb knock of 42 (43b, 4*4, 7*2) and occupied the crease from the 3rd over, right into the 19th over. He featured in two partnerships with Parag and Rupesh, the second of which yielded 42 runs in 34 balls.

Samir walked in at the fall of Hari's wicket. Rupesh was held well by Pradeep in the final over off the bowling of Ajay. Pradeep ran back from short mid-wicket making the difficult catch look easy. Rupesh played a valuable, attacking knock of 26 (20b, 4*4, 2*2) runs and looked in good touch despite a long break. Samir struck a straight boundary between long-on and long-off scoring a quick 9 in six balls. We thus scored a mighty 148/6 in 20 overs, a score range that we have not reached for a long time now. Pradeep with figures of 4-0-14-2 was the only bowler who walked away with good bowling figures but the rest of the bowlers had a forgetful day for the Strikers.

It seemed like a score our good bowling line-up for the day could defend, even given the good batting strip we would be bowling on. Amit and Srinivas bowled a steady first over each, to begin the second inning on a good note. Roopesh was hit on the eye by a ball that hit the edge and also struck his nose. Roopesh had to retire but that brought the in-form Pradeep to the crease. Pradeep struck a huge six towards a vacant mid-wicket in the 4th over being bowled by Srinivas and followed that up with a boundary in the 5th over being bowled by Amit. With Pradeep at the crease and in good batting form, the game seemed on but we were bowling with a good attack and a huge cushion in terms of runs. Vijay S, our bowler with wicket taking ability struck with two wickets in the 6th over. Pradeep played out two quiet balls on the back foot, facing balls that were at good length. The third was a beauty that was well pitched up and came in to knock the middle-stump. The very next ball Shiva edged to Rahul B behind the stumps. Gopal joined Manav at the crease and struck a couple of twos in the 8th over being bowled by Vijay S. Vijay S then forced Gopal to lob one to Ajay at gully who held a good catch moving quickly to his left. Rupesh had bowled a quiet first over but struck in his second, the 9th of the inning dismissing Ajay, caught behind by Rahul B. Strikers walked into the break with a score of 46/4 and most of the attacking force in batting having returned to the pavilion.

Rupesh then struck with two wickets in the 11th over. The first was a blinder taken by Parag standing at first slip, due to a leg injury. The ball clipped the gloves of the wicket keeper Rahul B but Parag stretched to his left and went for the ball diving and holding the catch one-handed. Arun then edged an easy catch to Parag at the same position on the very next ball. Both Vijay S and Rupesh were denied a hat-trick by the Strikers but theses double-wicket blows were lethal. With six wickets down and plenty to chase the game all but seemed a formaility after 11 overs with the Strikers precariously placed at 47/6. After 13 overs Strikers had reached 59/6 with both Vijay S and Rupesh having completed their spells wiping away six of the top eight batsmen. Figures of 4-0-17-3 for Vijay S and an even better figures of 4-0-10-3 for Rupesh, give an idea of what had been missing in recent games where our bowling lacked the ability to wipe out the opposition.

The game meandered from then on with members from both sides resorting to unnecessary verbal retorts over irrelevant matters. Kishore and Sumanth put on a partnership of sorts to push the score towards the 70's and 80's. Hari had Kishore caught behind and the batsman promptly walked. Srinivas bowled Sumanth in the 18th over. Amit meanwhile completed another tight spell with excellent figures of 4-0-16-0 but despite no wickets performed a splendid job for the team. Narasaiah struck some runs towards the end when our side was just going through the formalities of getting the game through the 20 overs.

The 45 run victory meant the series is now tied at 1-1, with a clinical performance by the entire team. Samir did a fine job as captain both on and off the field despite his rush in terms of time and imaptience of a few players on our side. Excellent effort with bat and ball brings us joy and a comprehensive win. A win in the final game should make up for recent losses.

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Match 5 against Strikers on 09202009

Our recent underperforming trend continued with another easy loss against the Strikers today.

Strikers won the toss and elected to field first at Cypress Canyon Ground (Small).
Highlights :-
FAC : 78/10 in 18 overs
Hari 14 (31b), Mudit 11 (10b, 1*4)

Four of our batsman were needlessly run out. From 42/3 in 10 overs we were bundled in 18 overs.

Strikers : 79/5 in 14.4 overs
Pradeep 26 (23b, 2*4), Sumanth 11 (17b, 1*4)

Pradeep continued his good form against us remaining unbeaten for the second time in five outings. We dropped a couple of catches the first of which was in the second over. Pradeep was dropped at point later in the inning to deny 'Srinivas A' a wicket. That wicket could have given us a chance to get back into the game.

We have to now fight back from being 1-0 down in the three match series, with three losses on the trot against the Strikers. With 4 losses in the last 5 games and 6 losses in the last 13 we need to give some thought to our approach to these games.

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Match 1 of 3 against Strikers on 09132009 (Game 4)

The first game of the three match series against the Strikers was played at Spring Canyon Ground (Small). Narasaiah won the toss and elected to field first.

Parag and Hari opened the batting. The opening over from Shiva was played away quietly with just two no-balls being conceded. Hari began with aggression lifting one over the infielder at square leg and then lofting one to long on for two successive boundaries. Shiva bowled another tidy over and Haran was replaced by Pradeep. Pradeep bowled a tidy over and the score after 4 overs was 17/0. In the next over from Shiva, Hari and Samir were bowled on the first and final ball of the over. At 18/2 the inning needed consolidation considering the fact that a wicket or two at that stage could have resulted in us not making use of the entire 20 overs. Shekhar joined Parag and together they did just that for the next few overs. Parag lifted one over mid-wicket for a boundary but in general the score seemed to be moving along at a slow rate. The score at the end of 9 overs was a meagre 29/2 and it was time to accelerate. The 10th over was bowled by Narasaiah and given his recent success it was possible we could lose wickets with him bowling. The two batsmen however managed to upset the rhythm of the bowler. While Shekhar preferred to make an attempt to move to the off-side and hit the ball behind square on the leg side, Parag preferred the switch hit. Both could not connect the ball as desired but quite a few wides were conceded and the movement of the batsmen resulted in the keeper getting distracted. 13 runs resulted with 7 of them being wides. We went into the break at 42/2 and an acceleration in the second phase of the inning was a necessity.

Pradeep continued after the break and gave away a meagre 3 runs in the 11th over. The 12th over however produced 7 runs with Parag hitting Kishore for a boundary towards mid-wicket. 11 runs were scored in the next two oves and the score after 14 overs was 63/2. Parag was bowled on the first ball of the 15th over and this brought Shiva his 3rd wicket in a 4 over spell. Shiva finished with excellent figures of 4-0-10-3. Parag scored 25 runs (43b, 2*4) and did well to steady the inning but could have tried to attain a better strike rate. Shekhar did hit Ajay for a good-looking boundary towards fine leg on a full length ball, by moving outside the off stump. Shekhar then retired for a brief while resulting in Santosh and Nitin B getting to the crease. Nitin B lofted one from Ajay over the off side for a three. He then lofted one from Prasad towards long-on for a boundary and hit a couple of twos in the same over bringing us the much desired acceleration. Santosh was run-out going for a second run bringing in Amit to the crease. Nitin B was bowled by Ajay and Shekhar walked in to resume his inning. Shekhar lofted one over extra cover for a boundary on the off-side and after 19 overs we had reached 94/5. Shekhar was bowled on the last ball of the 20th over but we did manage to score 100/5 in the allotted 20 overs. Shekhar played a role of consolidating the inning scoring 19 (39b, 2*4) runs.

The score seemed about 15 runs less than what we would have desired on that wicket, given the lack of a regular 5th bowler. The score however was a decent one against what was a pretty good bowling attack.

Srinivas and Hari opened the bowling attack. Srinivas bowled pretty well conceding just two runs in overs 1 and 3, and picked up the wicket of Roopesh, caught behind by Santosh. Hari picked up a wicket in the 4th over but conceded 14 runs in the process. Shiva moved to cut one on the off-side but was bowled by Hari. Amit bowled a tidy 5th over conceding three wides to place Cricket Communications (Strikers) at 19/2 after 5 overs. Chandra (new player) was introduced into the attack in the 6th over and conceded 15 runs including two boundaries, a three and a two. Pradeep cashed in on a few loose balls bowled by Chandra, who was bowling for the first time for our team. The complete balance of the chase changed with that one over resulting in Strikers reaching 34/2 in 6 overs. Samir and Amit continued to bowl well but a series of wides did not help, even though they did well to not allow the batsmen to score many of the bat. Strikers reached 48/2 in 8 overs. Srinivas came back to bowl the 10th over and picked up Manav. Santosh held a very sharp catch to his right bringing some initiative back on our side.

At 55/3 after 10 overs, Strikers seemed to be in control of the game. All they needed to do was to play our regular bowlers on merit and then wait for three overs from the 5th bowler. Pradeep was the batsman for the cause. Sumanth joined Pradeep but he could not last long. Santosh picked up another good low catch on the leg side giving Hari his second wicket in the 13th over. Ajay joined Pradeep and played with aggression. With Pradeep playing steadily, mixing caution with aggression and Ajay playing aggressively the remainder of the runs were shaved off quickly. After 17 over, the top four bowlers were used up and just 7 runs were needed in the final 3 overs. Ajay was dismissed by Samir in the 17th over, after he had score 18 runs in 15 balls (1*4). Amit held a good catch at long-on to send Ajay back to the pavilion. The ball was travelling and Amit judged the catch pretty well.

Shekhar ensured the game went into the 19th over but the end was a formality. Pradeep played a match winning knock to return 27 not out (44b, 3*4). With a spell of 4-0-14-1 and the 27 with bat, Pradeep sure is the MoM of this game. Srinivas had good figures of 4-0-12-2 and Amit gave away a meagre 7 runs of the bat but also bowled 8 wides in his 4 over spell.

We did drop a couple of catches and had a couple of overthrows and mis-fields but we did fight back. We bowled close to 5 extra overs with 29 extras being given to the opposition for free. For the Strikers, this was more of a convincing win compared to the first win. As for us, we need to perform better in both batting and bowling to win this series, being 1-0 down after game one. We also need to field a balanced team with every department of the game having a strong re-presentation in order to ensure the series stays alive after two games.

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