By Anurag...
Engineers continue their winning streak with their fourth consecutive win this season. With this win, the Engineers successfully defended the Pacific Friendship Cup and extended their winning streak against YCAC to four.
The game was played at the beautiful YCAC ground. With both teams looking to beat the heat and trying to avoid fielding first, Prashant, YCAC’s stand-in captain, called it right and decided to bat first. With temperatures soaring well above 30 degress, the Engineers started their attack with the experienced duo of Biju and Ashok. It only took an over for Biju to replace the opening batsman Kumara, who trying to up the ante, ended up giving a lolly to Masood at mid-on, who never drops any. A couple of overs later, the new guy Mohibul was asked to replace Biju, who started generating pretty serious pace from the beginning. Mohibul took out the other opener with a good Yorker, which brought YCAC’s best batsman and captain, Prashant, in. After that, Dinesh and Anurag started attack from the respective ends. Anurag took out the aggressive Chandana with a bouncer, Ashok taking the catch at fine-leg. In the same over, another slower one took out the leg stump of the new batsman, Richard, who was trying to duck thinking it was a beamer. The scoreboard read 69/3 after 13 overs.
After the fall of these few quick wickets, YCAC’s this year recruit, Amila(ex-SL Lion), joined Prashant in the middle. Both guys started building partnership, playing sensibly, mixing aggression with caution without taking unnecessary risks. Both batsmen, after seeing off the main bowlers and getting their eye in, started taking their chances. Prashant hit a couple of consecutive sixes off Kamal. After a big partnership of 131 runs, Amila fell to Naveen trying to accelerate after his half-century, caught at long-on by Naveen. The scoreboard read 200/4 after 30 overs.
Engineers ended up restricting YCAC to 267, with the help of some useful death bowling especially by Mohibul. Prashant, their star batsman stayed unbeaten at 112*.
The conditions were not favorable but the Engineers should have restricted YCAC to a much lower score looking at their bowling strength. Overall fielding was pretty good which is a big positive. There were a couple of dropped chances but those were really difficult catches. Silvester was as usual, exceptional behind the wicket. He’s a complete natural, he just didn’t know about his keeping skills earlier.
The Engineers started their chase with Masood and Ashok. Masood fell early to a quicker one by Brent, with the score reading only 3. The newbie Naveen came in and was looking in good touch, before he lofted one straight to Prashant at mid-on off Amila. The scoreboard read 7 for 2 after 4 overs. Dinesh walked in to join Ashok, who was steady at the other end. Both of them started building the crucial partnership. Ashok played a couple of beautiful and powerful cuts to YCAC’s best bowler, Amila. Dinesh survived a couple of chances, thanks to YCAC’s poor fielding, and started playing cautiously thereafter. Ashok played an absolute cameo, dealing mostly in boundaries. He looked and played solid throughout. Both the batsmen completed their half centuries and took the total past hundred. After drinks, Ashok fell to Sanjay, trying to up the run rate. This was the biggest partnership of the game, at 133 runs. Dinesh fell soon after, mishitting a long hawk by Tim. The score at that point was 162 for 4.
With another 100+ runs to go, the run rate was touching 8. After this, Engineers captain Sanjeeb steadied the ship with Vezly with a 25 run partnership. After Vezly fell down trying to accelerate, Anurag joined Sanjeeb for another useful 30 run partnership. Anurag fell the same way as Vezly with the score reading 217 with 7 overs to go. Sanjeeb on the other hand was hitting the ball well. He hit a couple of big sixes before getting caught at long-off after a well paced 31, with Chandana taking a superb catch.
At this point the Engineers needed another 39 runs with 5 overs to go. Silvester and Mohibul contributed with another meaningful partnership. After Silvester fell, Engineers needed another 29 with only two wickets in hand and less than 4 overs to go.
Kamal who was playing with the season ball after ages, joined Mohibul in the middle. The next over by Brent was the turning point of the game, both Mohibul and Kamal took a six each, both straight bat proper cricket shots right over the bowler’s head. The run rate eased down a bit but Mohibul fell soon after that, which brought Biju to the crease. Run rate wasn’t a big problem anymore but all of Engineers hopes lied with Biju. Biju rotated the strike right away and Kamal's straight drive reached the boundary even though Amila tried hard with a spectacular dive to stop it.
In the penultimate over Biju was again on strike, IECC was just needing 5 runs to win , and YCAC needing just one wicket. By that time IECC captain has already finished chewing all his nails and looking at other peoples nails:) and came what a relief; to everyone's disbelief Biju glanced a ball pitched on his leg to the square leg , the fielder there dived and managed to get a hand to the ball but failed to stop it reaching the boundary. The scores are leveled now. The next ball was a wide and the whole team rushed in and almost mauled Biju and Kamal to death in the process.
And for some strange reason the beer at YCAC seemed extra special that evening.
It was an impressive batting performance by the Engineers to chase down 260+. The best part was that it wasn’t a one man show and everyone contributed.
Special thanks to Mohan for being such a good sport. He fielded as a sub in the scorching heat and later umpired the whole innings.
Brief Scorecard: YCAC 267/5 (Prashant 112*, Amila 51, Anurag 2/37, Mohibul 1/38)
Engineers 268/9(Dinesh 64, Ashok 54, Sanjeeb 31, Kamal 19*)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
IECC Vs Kytes KCL 06-Jun-2010
By Sanjeeb....
IECC won the toss and decided to bat first. The wicket offered good bounce and pace and IECC lost their first wicket in Masood the score reading only 6. But a superb 94 run 2nd wicket partnership between Santosh(35) and Dinesh(55) gave solid foundation to IECC's innings. Both batsmen mixed caution with aggression and dominated Kytes attack.
However 3 wickets fell in quick succession; First Santosh was bit unlucky to be adjudged LBW, next Dinesh top edged a delivery,he could have easily dispatched to the boundary in another day. Anurag was next to fall trying to set a slower delivery into orbit.
Sanjeeb sensing danger went into a defensive mode and scored only in singles and occasional boundaries when he received a bad ball. However the fallen wickets had no effects on Raju and as soon as he joined Sanjeeb at the crease he dispatched three back to back sixes straight over the bowlers head. All of them being massive and landed deep inside the dry river. However Raju soon fell victim to an uneven bounce and had to depart.All other batsmen kept the scoreboard ticking and played freely while Sanjeeb made sure he holds one end till the very end. Some late big hitting by Harsha, Shailaj and Pankaj evetually took IECC to 260/8.
With bowlers like Anurag, Dinesh and Ganesh in their ranks IECC was pretty confident to defend this total. Pankaj and Sahilaj were trusted with the new ball, Pankaj bowled steadily and managed to remove Neil on his first over. Thanks to a superb catch at gully by Ganesh.Any body else would have certailnly dropped it, take my word for it. That catch went a long way lifting IECC's moral and the fielding remained top class through out the inning.There were couple of runouts and Ganesh even bettered his last effort by taking another diving catch at gully which would have made Jhonty Rhodes proud.
However most of our bowlers, apart from Anurag and Dinesh, got little carried away, and bowled too many wides. Though it was a windy day and the CA ball is little hard to control it is no excuse for giving 43 wides and no balls in just 23 overs. That is almost 2 extra deliveries each over.Must commend Silvi for negotiating those bad deliveries, if he wasn't a natural and someone with a long reach the extras would have looked even more ridiculous. Anurag was pick of the bowlers again and claimed 3/13 from his 5 overs.
Nevertheless this was a huge victory and will certainly do a lot of good to IECC's run rate. And of course the victory was celebrated in Engineers traditional way, at the highway beer garden :)
Brief scorecard
IECC: 260/8 (40 overs) (Dinesh Singh 55, Sanjeeb Sahoo 52)
Kytes : 128/10 (23.4 overs) (Sukitha Halambage 30, Anurag Singh 3/13)
Here is a link to the scorecard
Here are few pictures from the trip.
IECC won the toss and decided to bat first. The wicket offered good bounce and pace and IECC lost their first wicket in Masood the score reading only 6. But a superb 94 run 2nd wicket partnership between Santosh(35) and Dinesh(55) gave solid foundation to IECC's innings. Both batsmen mixed caution with aggression and dominated Kytes attack.
However 3 wickets fell in quick succession; First Santosh was bit unlucky to be adjudged LBW, next Dinesh top edged a delivery,he could have easily dispatched to the boundary in another day. Anurag was next to fall trying to set a slower delivery into orbit.
Sanjeeb sensing danger went into a defensive mode and scored only in singles and occasional boundaries when he received a bad ball. However the fallen wickets had no effects on Raju and as soon as he joined Sanjeeb at the crease he dispatched three back to back sixes straight over the bowlers head. All of them being massive and landed deep inside the dry river. However Raju soon fell victim to an uneven bounce and had to depart.All other batsmen kept the scoreboard ticking and played freely while Sanjeeb made sure he holds one end till the very end. Some late big hitting by Harsha, Shailaj and Pankaj evetually took IECC to 260/8.
With bowlers like Anurag, Dinesh and Ganesh in their ranks IECC was pretty confident to defend this total. Pankaj and Sahilaj were trusted with the new ball, Pankaj bowled steadily and managed to remove Neil on his first over. Thanks to a superb catch at gully by Ganesh.Any body else would have certailnly dropped it, take my word for it. That catch went a long way lifting IECC's moral and the fielding remained top class through out the inning.There were couple of runouts and Ganesh even bettered his last effort by taking another diving catch at gully which would have made Jhonty Rhodes proud.
However most of our bowlers, apart from Anurag and Dinesh, got little carried away, and bowled too many wides. Though it was a windy day and the CA ball is little hard to control it is no excuse for giving 43 wides and no balls in just 23 overs. That is almost 2 extra deliveries each over.Must commend Silvi for negotiating those bad deliveries, if he wasn't a natural and someone with a long reach the extras would have looked even more ridiculous. Anurag was pick of the bowlers again and claimed 3/13 from his 5 overs.
Nevertheless this was a huge victory and will certainly do a lot of good to IECC's run rate. And of course the victory was celebrated in Engineers traditional way, at the highway beer garden :)
Brief scorecard
IECC: 260/8 (40 overs) (Dinesh Singh 55, Sanjeeb Sahoo 52)
Kytes : 128/10 (23.4 overs) (Sukitha Halambage 30, Anurag Singh 3/13)
Here is a link to the scorecard
Here are few pictures from the trip.
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