Match 13 against Doyle Devils on 05162009

As reported by Ajay K:-
We have witnessed Hari Rajagopalan decimate the opposition with his batting, but on Saturday 05/16 we saw Hari do that to the opposition with his bowling as well.Doyle Park won the toss and chose to bat first. They probably wanted to try something different from last time. Batting first on the moist pitch did not seem a very wise decision.Karthik and Srini opened the batting for Doyle, just like the last game and Vijay opened the bowling for us. Vijay bowled a tidy first over conceding only a single. Hari started the proceedings at the other end and drew first blood in his opening over itself, knocking off Karthik’s leg stump.In his second over Hari struck again, this time knocking off Srini’s leg stump. That brought Tushmin to the crease. Vijay continued his tidy line in his third over, yielding only a single. Hari continued with his spell and we saw the back of Ranjit, who had stuck around for surprisingly too long. The third delivery of Hari’s over was a high full toss. Tushnim tried to play across the line, missed it completely and to Hari’s glee, it found Tusnim’s off stump! Mudit at mid-on was convinced that the stump that fell is called the leg stump. Vijay finally got rewarded in his final over as he cleaned up Sampath’s off stump. So far the score had just been ambling along and I was confident that if we continued to apply pressure, I would get to open the innings once again.Sam and Samir replaced Hari and Vijay. Between the two of them they maintained the pressure though Sam bowled a few wides in his opening over.I got their captain Venkat with the first delivery of my spell as he moved his bat too gently to the gentle pace of my delivery and lost his off stump.We were next witness to a brilliant run out from Naman. Fielding at point he quickly collected the ball, had just one stump to aim at, and hit bulls eye! But there were several more brilliant saves from Naman around the point-gully region.

Prashanth and Vipul then settled into a partnership and steered the Doyle Park score towards respectability. Though Sam, Mudit and Samir contniued to bowl a tight line, yet they did not lose an opportunity to steal runs. Samir went for 12 runs in his last over and lost his cool over a mis-field at long-on. By now Hari had lost his patience and brought himself on and got into business rightaway as Prashant tried to evade a shotpitched delivery from him, only to balloon a simple catch to the keeper. The next man Janatha took a baseball like stance, holoding the bat with virtually just one hand. Didn’t take Hari more than 2 balls to clean bowl him. The Doyle Park innings wrapped up in the last over as I yorked Vipul who was trying to step out to every ball. Doyle – 93 all out. Not a difficuot target at all especially since the pitch had dried up by now.Sam and Shekhar opened the innings for us. Shekhar unfortunately was run out in the 2nd over to a direct hit at the non-striker’s end. Nitin came in next and it was entertainment all through . Nitin started plundering runs at will especially towards long on. The shots were lofted and somehow Nitin targeted Sampath at long – on, who vainly tried to hold on to the lofted shots. Once the ball poppedout of his hands to sail over the fence for a 6 and the other time, it just dropped short of the fence for a 4. Sampath was moved to a close in position in the hope of a better fielder holding on to the next chance. Nitin continued unabashed hitting his shots freely. Sam on the other hand swung and missed, but nibbled a few deliveries here and there. Close to the 10 over break, Sam was out to a brilliant delivery from Shiva. It pitched out side the off and as Sam made room for his shot, it came in and konocked off the middle stump. Irrespective of the 2 wickets we had lost, we were at a healthy 50 at the 10 over break. The key was not to lose sight of the run rate while keeping our wickets intact. But in the 12th over itself Nitin found a full toss too tempting not to pull and yet again found Sampath, this time at deep mid wicket. But this time, the law of averages caught up and he held on to the catch. Nitin was out to a well made 26 off only 24 balls, laced with a six and 2 4s. Naman and Satish followed soon after, out to good catches. Doyle suddenly saw its fortunes reversed with our scoreline reading 67 for 6 at the end of 13 overs.Hari yet again had other ideas and along with Samir, saw us through in 17 overs. Though Samir had his hits and misses, Hari made a steady 20 off 15 deliveries with 3 glorious 4s. It was a only fitting to wrap up the day with a great batting performance too. The all round performance puts Hari as the man of the match. I guess, Hari is shaping into a good captain. Keep it up Hari and keep it up team. Great performance!
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rwqSbqvaam3HX2Ca2UKNnlQ&hl=en