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.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArRZKVChcIaXdDEtWkxsMnFqclVpYWRBTW1nTndBVmc&hl=en
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