Eagles v/s Panthers Game 3 of 5 04182009

Game 3 of the series was played at Cypress Canyon Ground (Big) on a day that was to be one with rising temperatures.

Sam won the toss for the third time in a row and elected to bat first. Parag and Hari opened the batting for the Eagles.

Inning One Highlights :-
Eagles 111/9 in 20 overs
Parag 41(37b, 1*6 and 4*4)
Rupesh 16 (10b, 1*6)
Rosie : 3-0-14-4
Vijay S : 3-1-10-1

Parag scored 14 runs in the 10th over bowled by Srinivas with a mighty six and a four due to a mis-field. Eagles were 62/2 in 10 overs but could not accelerate at the same pace in the second half of their inning with the bat. Vijay S bowled a maiden in the 11th over. Rosie then picked up the wicket of Parag in the 12th over with Mudit holding on to a catch at deep fine leg. Earlier Hari and Satheesh were snapped behind the wicket to give Amit C and Vijay S a wicket each. Shekhar lobbed a simple catch to short extra cover. Rosie continued to pick up wickets in the next two overs to return with a 4 wicket haul. Rupesh hit a six towards mid-wicket in the 18th over being bowled by Samir that yielded 13 runs.

Inning Two Highlights :-
Panthers 114/6 in 18.4 overs
Mudit 28 (316, 4*4)
Samir 18* (14b, 2*4)
Sam : 3-0-15-2

Suresh and Amit opened the inning and both of them were run-out. Amit went for a tight third run and had to return back to the pavilion with a direct hit from behind the stumps. Suresh and Nitin have a history of getting one or the other run-out when batting together. Suresh did not call well and was run -out with Nitin B being stuck to the crease. Mudit walked into the crease with Amit C bowling. Loose balls at the start resulted in Mudit scoring 11 runs in an over increasing his ease at batting. Mudit went on to hit Sam behind the wicket for a boundary towards a wide third man. Mudit scored 28 (4*4) and was bowled to give Shekhar a much desired first wicket of the series.

Panthers had gone into the break with 54/3 and did not seem too worried about the chase. Runs continued to flow at a steady pace for the Panthers. Vijay S and Samir collected singles and twos at will towards the end. The wickets of Vijay S and Srinivas did not deter the chase. Samir hit two boundaries in the 19th over being bowled by Rupesh with the field being brought up with only 6 runs to defend. Panthers went to win the third game by 4 wickets with 8 balls to spare.

Panthers seem to be not making too many mistakes and might very well finish the series without any further defeats. Eagles would need to improve in their wicket taking ability as well as the ability to restrict the scoring of the opposition. On the batting front Eagles need to maintain the scoring rate without losing wickets in a heap.

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