Match against Sony on 09/27/2008

We won the toss and elected to field in the 20 over game at Cypress Canyon Ground (Small).

Siva and Rosie opened the bowling in the early morning conditions. Amit and Narayan provided a decent start. Rahul B held a good catch down leg side to dismiss Amit with Rosie bowling his second over, the fourth of the inning. Pankaj joined Narayan and together they averted any further loss of wickets until the 10th over being bowled by Vinay. Vinay secured the wickets of both Narayan and Pankaj in the same over. Sony reached a modest score of 36/3 in 10 overs and it appeared they could be restricted to about 75 in 20 overs.

Nilesh and Unni were dismissed in the next couple of overs and our position seemed even stronger. Nagendra, Adarsh and Kishan added valuable runs in the last 5/6 overs and Sony managed to reach 88 in 20 overs having lost just 7 wickets. Adarsh and Kishan swung the bat in the last few overs to get three boundaries.

Vinay (3), Rosie (2) and Vijay S (1) were among the wickets and kept the scoring down. Siva bowled his overs at a stretch and was unlucky to not get a wicket. The 5th bowler however conceded 33 runs. This meant we had conceded at least 15-20 runs more than we should have, given the average rpo of of every other bowler. Nevertheless a target of 89 in 20 overs was not impossible even against an ever improving bowling attack.

Parag and Gopal were dismissed in the very first over. Hari, Mudit and Vijay S did not stick to the wicket for long having come in with not many runs on the board. With wickets having fallen in heaps Shekhar and Suresh had to stay on the wicket and see off bowlers who were bowling a good line.

57 runs were required in the final 10 overs with 5 wickets in hand and the situation looked tough. Every bowler from Sony bowled good conceeding relatively few extras and not bowling anything loose. This meant our batsmen had to work hard for their runs. Good fielding in the circle on either side made it even more difficult to score runs. The asking rate slowly mounted to 6 and then crept to 8. Siva and Shekhar tried hard towards the end. Siva played a valuable knock of 15(15b, 1*4). 17 runs were required in the final two overs but we eventually fell short by 9 runs.

Shekhar did very well to carry his bat through having come in as an opener. He hung around with wickets fallen at fair regularity on the other side and in the end scored 25 (51b, 1*4) but could not be on the winning side.

Bala (4-0-8-2), Ravindra (4-1-11-3) were the pick of the bowlers. Almost all the Sony bowlers bring the ball in with regularity. At least three of our batsmen were bowled and one caught behind on incoming deliveries. Sony has improved by leaps and with a full strength side can test any opposition we play amongst. Sony conceeded just two boundaries and a six but did give away 18 extras. They bowl relatively full, bring the ball in and rely on good fielders in the V to keep scoring down.

Sony thus won the three game series 2-1, having squandered a winning position in the first. The three games we last won were not won with great conviction. We thus need improvement in terms of consistent play and adjustment in terms of the need of the situation.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pEn3926bpcprRmplD0TJDbA&hl=en