Vijay S and Hari opened the batting. Hari dispatched the second ball he received from Nilesh towards mid-wicket for a huge six. Vijay S hit one straight to mid-off/cover, went for the run on seeing Hari respond but was sent back and could not get back in time. There was no single for the taking since the ball had travelled fast towards Pankaj who is one of the better fielders. The first over from Bala was hit for a boundary by Hari.
In the 6th over being bowled by Bala, Hari hit one high towards long-on where Neil held the catch with ease. Suresh then joined Parag and together they took the score to 45 in 10 overs.
Suresh was held at short mid-wicket on the last ball of the 10th over.
Yogesh was dismissed in the same manner as Suresh when he hit one uppishly towards short mid-on. Samir and Shekhar followed pretty soon. 60/3 in 12 overs suddenly changed to 66/6 at the end of 15 overs.
Parag was dismissed on the first ball of the 19th over with the score on 80 having scored 33 (38b, 2*4). Mudit then scored a brisk 9 in 9 balls. Mudit and Ajay scampered an all run 4 on the final ball as the fielders from Sony kept shying at the stumps without proper backup. They had converted a 2 to a 4 which is rather rare at our level of cricket.
While on the previous day the team has scored 71/1 in the last 7 overs, on this day the batting only managed 26/4 in the final 7 overs.
We thus had 89/8 in 20 overs a score that was modest given we were a bowler short with Sam missing from the playing 11.
Vijay S dismissed Nilesh in the first over itself. Pankaj coming at one drop, had a lucky day with as many as three lives. He made most of the lives scoring a brisk 21 (28b, 1*4 and 1*6). Samir bowled Pankaj on the next ball immediately after Pankaj pulled one high over square leg. Neil at the other end was a personification of defence playing as if it were a 30 over game. With the heroics of Pankaj, Sony however reached 49/3 in 10 overs and were in with a chance.
After the break, Sony lost two additional wickets in the form of run-outs and two others in the field to have the equation come down 24 to get in 25 balls. Samir and Vijay S had picked up Sai and Neil to keep the team within reach of defending the target.
17 runs in 18b, 9 runs in 12 balls, came down to 5 runs in 6 balls with 3 wicket in hand. Ajay, Saran, and Hari had bowled overs 17 to 19.
Yogesh was handed the ball to defend 5 runs. He kept tossing the ball up and varied the length, which at times was was full and at other times was not within driving range. The batsmen chose to drive from within the crease and kept missing that could have been tapped for singles. Without conceding any extras Yogesh was able to restrict the opposition to just 2 runs, giving us victory by a meagre 2 runs.
Sony as usual was unable to go the extra yard to seal a win. The 2 extra runs conceeded on the final ball and the accurate over bowled by Yogesh made a difference in the end.
We had about 5 catches dropped in the field with other instances of lack of adequare effort in the field. Also, in the final slog overs the batting could not capitalize on a good platform.
We were lucky to keep our unbeaten record (10-0) against Sony intact but what finally matters is a win !!
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pEn3926bpcpq6rFoFUkSsTw&hl=en
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