Crucial Friendly WON against Indian Tigers.- by Kunal

Yes, crucial was the one word that described the 'Friendly' match on the 31st of July. After losing to them in the previous 3 encounters, it was time for the redemption of the pride we take in being the IECC. With the weather Gods again threatening to play the spoil sport at the Moriya grounds, we eventually reached the venue by 9:30am.

After losing the toss and put into Bat by the Tigers, we were off to a fantastic start, thanks to some superb batting display by Anurag and Shailaj. With Anurag blazing guns at one end and the calm and composed Shailaj at the other end, it was a true display of what a true opening batting pair is supposed to be. Both Anurag and Shailaj eventually raised their bats in response to the loud cheers from the team sitting on the sidelines.

After the first wicket loss of Anurag, in came Dinesh and showed some classical stoke play along the ground on the off side to score 30 runs. Even Dravid would have applauded on some of those straight fluent strokes of our 3 opening batsmen i suppose. :)

After Dinesh, it was come and go for almost all the batsmen due to pitch not playing conducive to slog shots.A quick fire 13 from 5 balls from Kunal did help to cross the psychological barrier of 180 runs. The ball was keeping low and an occasional ball would just skid in without much bounce. The need for a pitch roller is getting more and more highlighted with every match. The final total after playing our quota of 30 overs stood at 193.

With the innings break taken, the drizzle started to come down harder every moment. Worth noting was the spirit of the Tigers to continue to play even in that drizzle. Eventually the second innings commenced amid doubts and fear of rains pouring harder any moment.

To say the least, the start was horrible. With the Tiger's openers slashing ball to every part of the ground and our opening bowlers struggling with their line, length and swing, it seemed for a while that even 190 was not enough on the day when it was rainy and the ball kept very low.

Then started the fight back IECC is known for. In came Sanjeeb and Anurag to the rescue. Putting an end to easy run flow and pitching in with occasional wickets, we slowly started to see the silver lining. The first wicket of Tigers came in the form of a run out with some swift fielding in the deep and superb efforts by the wicket keeper Vezly throughout the innings. Thereafter, it was all about containing the Tiger's batsmen and good ground fielding which we did exceptionally well. At the end, with Tigers eventually needing 22 from the last over, it was as good as done and Dinesh ensured it was done in style with us winning by 15 runs. Sanjeeb with 4 wickets was our pick of the bowlers, with Anurag, Dinesh and Kunal pitching in with wickets as well.

Shailaj and Anurag both adjudged joint man of the match award.

Overall, a superb winning team performance by IECC in a match where pride was at stake.

sore card...

20110626- Friendly with Sarendib

Serendib wins over IECC in a thrilling finish - (By Silvi)

Rains had almost threatened to spoil another day of cricket; this time a friendly between IECC and Serendib played in a soccer field in Kashiwa, Chiba (close to Moriya). Indian engineers were the first to arrive at the ground and setup the flex pitch while waiting for the opponents. Sarendib captain won the toss and elected to bat in a 30 overs per side game.

The Srilankan openers (Sachinat and Sameera) batted cautiously in the early stages before IECC opening bowler Rajneesh got the first wicket (lbw) with the score reading 25 for 1 at the end of 5 overs. Biju was the other opening bowler followed by Dinesh, Sanjeeb, Vehzy, Raju, Shailaj. The ball was keeping very low, sometimes almost skidding. Our bowlers at times had kept a good line but almost all our bowlers bowled at least xx wides with grand total of 36 wides. The Srilankan batsmen had a hard time scoring under these conditions and the opener Sachinta even offered two straight forward catches but we failed to gab on those opportunities.(Unlucky Bowler being Dinesh). At one stage, Serendib were 51/5. We dropped few more catches along the way, Sachinta, riding his luck, gradually began to solidify his batting with some good strokes/boundaries while the rest of Serendib batsmen hardly scored, got out mostly bowled or lbw to some good bowling especially from Sanjeeb who ended up with 4 wickets haul for 13 runs. Serendib finished their innings with a low score of 139 of which the opener Sachinta remained not out on 53.

Indian Engineers opened the innings with Yogesh and Sanjeeb but lost Yogesh early on lbw to a swinging yorker from Sukitha. Dinesh came in with the score at 5/1 and started to attack the bowling. He hit some splendid boundaries (4 fours and a six) in just 15 balls before he tried to go for another big hit and was brilliantly caught by Arosh of the bowling of Dhanuka. While Dinesh was at the crease it appeared the match would be over quickly as we were scoring at an average of 8~10 runs per over and at one stage we were 46/2 in 5 overs. The middle order batsmen tried to hang in there scoring at an average of 4 runs per over but with some good bowling from the Sri Lankans and some sloppy shots from our batsmen, we kept loosing wickets at periodic interval. By the end of 20 overs, the score was 78, still needing another 60 runs in 10 overs and 4 wickets in hand, it was still anybody’s game. Around 25 overs with 2 wickets in hand and 30 odd runs required, Raju, our main hope, who was still at the crease but yet to get runs, started to open the face of his bat going for some hits. He managed to score some boundaries including a six (six coming off a fielder who failed to take the catch at the fence and the ball popping out of his hands and over the line. With the six in the 29th over, the match was now evenly poised and full of nerves with about 6 runs required in 8 balls and one wicket in hand. Raju went for another big hit (possibly to score a six and finish the match) but failed to hit it cleanly and was caught by the fielder at mid-on. Serendib won the friendly match by 5 runs.

Though the engineers lost the match, it was a good close game with lots of fireworks and excitement and good sportsmanship and team spirit by both teams. We gave more wides (36) compared to Serendib (20). Overall the wides and the dropped catches in our fielding has cost us the game.

Brief Scores:
Serendib:
139 all out in 30 overs (36 wides)
Sachinta (opener) 53
Sanjeeb 4/13

IECC
134 (20 wides)
Dinesh 23 off 15 balls(4x4, 1x6), Raju 29 (3x4, 1x6)
Asanka 3/14 in 6 overs

KCL Semifinal - Oct 17, 2010

IECC prepared hard for this match with couple of practice sessions at home ground Koga. In addition President and strike bowler Biju was seen jogging 10 km in the morning and Captain Sanjeeb seen exercising hard at the Gym everyday to be able to bowl again. Raju almost didn’t eat anything for an entire month so that his hunger for run stays intact. While Kamal reduced smoking by 50%, Dinesh did not pick any mysterious phone calls that could turn out to be energy swapping in the end 
IECC won the toss and elected to field first. Biju soon trapped Alkaram captain Javed plumb in-front of the stump with a well disguised slower delivery on his 2nd over. However the other opener Chula was hitting the ball nicely and wasn’t giving any respect to any of the IECC bowlers.　Alkaram raced to 93 on the 8th over and were 107/1 by the end of 9th over.
Raju was brought into the attack and Sanjeeb decided to give it a try from the other end , after not bowling for the entire season due to a shoulder injury. Luckily the slow bowling worked and Sanjeeb managed to remove Chula with a flighted delivery. Raju had 2 quick wickets in his next over and the momentum slowly shifted towards IECC. Dinesh also contributed with couple of wickets towards the end but Alkaram managed to post decent score of 221 before getting all out on the 32nd over. Masood bowling the 32nd had his revenge when he clean bowled Omar on the 2nd ball after getting hit for a six on the first ball. Silvester as usual did a great job again behind the stumps.
Ageo ground is normally a high scoring ground. Though IECC would have liked to restrict Alkaram below 200 they seemed pretty happy chasing 222 given that they had a packed batting line up.
However Alkaram bowlers mainly the openers Chula and Yasheen bowled a fantastic opening spell to took the game away from us.While Yasheen was really good with his line and length and was managing some swing, Chula’s raw pace and bounce was disconcerting to most of our batsmen. Masood fell soon trying to put the bowlers under some pressure. Santosh manged to get a decent start. Dinesh and Santosh tried to forge a partnership but it didn’t last long as Santosh trying to accelerate the score miss-read a slower delivery from Chula and the woodwork got rearranged.
The first change bowler were not any easy to score of either. Even though they were not as threatening as Chula and Yasheen they were consistent with their line and length and managing to bounce the ball to chest height every now and then. The mounting run rate meant we needed to take risk and most of our middle order perished just trying to do that. IECC lost Dinesh(LBW) and Sanjeeb(caught at Short mid wicket) in quick succession. Only Kamal and Mohibul managed to bring some cheer to IECC camp and at that point IECC was still hopeful of a win. However Kamal got caught at the boundary trying to hit a six and Mohibul also fell in a similar fashion soon. Mohibul was the pick of the batsmen and top scored with a brilliant 44. Eventually IECC got all out on the 32nd over managing only 144.
There were few interesting incidents during the game. One of them being Amjad Mirza hit the ball in the air towards Masood, Masood could not find the ball for few seconds after dropping the chance as the ball got hidden under the grass. Amjad thought it was 4 and stopped running in the middle, Masood then found the ball and threw the ball to Ganesh who dislodged the bell to get Amjad run out.
The game was played with good spirit and both the umpires from Giants team were quite good at their job. Would like to take this opportunity to thank both Mumtaj and Javed for doing the job skill-fully.
Though we lost this game and it was disappointing, we should still be proud of ourselves reaching the Semi after 7 years. This new looking team has lot of potential and I am sure we should be able to achieve great heights if we play up to our potential. We should also plan to play few more friendly matches with Pakistani teams, to better prepare ourselves for big matches. Since we have our own pitch and ground now, it shouldn’t be too difficult next year.

Detailed Scorecard attached below….

IECC vs. YCAC, 18th July - Engineers clinch the nail-biter

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*)

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.

2010-05-22 IECC Vs Predators - an excellent begining to KCL campaign

By Silvester Pereira....

The Engineers (IECC) and Predators KCL match in Shizuoka was welcomed with a bright, clear and sunny weather. The game began around 11:30 am with IECC stand in captain Anurag, winning the toss and electing to bat. Masood and Ritesh opened the batting for IECC while Saijash and Robin opened the bowling for the Predators. The Predators had only 10.5 players (0.5 being a 11 year young and enthusiastic Liam Hunt). It was rumored that the key player for Predators didn’t make it for the game which added to their misery.



The 1st opening pair gave a good start to IECC scoring 33 runs before Masood was out caught for 12 runs. Ritesh didn’t last long before being out lbw for 10 runs (score being 42). Harsha, our newcomer, joined Yogesh on the other end before he too, was bowled of the bowling of Saijash, their only and best bowler of the day. Raju joined Yogesh with score reading 49/3 (in 10 overs) and the two carried along making merry, enjoying their luck (dropped catches) and scoring from a weak bowling attack for a long and well deserved partnership. There were plenty of fireworks, mainly from Raju, who was well supported by Yogesh on the other end. The pair batted together for almost 25 overs setting up a new 4th wicket KCL record partnership of 251 runs. Saijash was the only dangerous bowler for the Predators who bowled a continuous 8 over spell starting from the first over, gave just 16 runs and took 2 wickets.



Anurag, our captain was padded and kept waiting for almost 25 overs before Yogesh got bowled (37th over) by Gardiner after a respectful personal best score of 65 runs with the score at 300. The Predators, at this stage, having almost given up the game experimented by bringing in the young Liam, who gave 25 runs in his 2 overs. Raju remained not out for 169 at the end of 40 overs with 46 extras in IECC score of 310/4.



The Engineers, after having a good score behind them, started to take charge of the bowling with Biju opening the attack and Anurag on the other end. Gardiner and Chanukha opening the batting for the Predators before Chanukha was beautifully caught at gully by Ganesh of the bowling of Biju with the score reading just 8 runs. Saijash joined Gardiner and the two gradually built a good partnership hitting some great shots before Gardiner, the danger man, missing the line was bowled of the bowling of Anurag for 13 runs. Saijash, trying for a pull shot, went immediately caught by Raj at mid-on again of the bowling of Anurag for well made 25 runs (highest for the Predators). The rest of the batsman didn’t last long, falling at short intervals of some really good bowling from Ganesh, Rajeesh and Shailaaj, most of them being “clean bowled”. Due to absence of our regular wicketkeepers, Yours truly was asked to do the honors of keeping wickets, something not done for 16 years since the club was formed! With failing light, the engineers wrapped up the Predators innings for 110 runs (33 of which came from extras!) with a victory margin of 200 runs paving the way for an excellent start to the KCL tournament.



Overall it was a good team work from IECC in all departments of the game with good batting, luck, bowling and being able to take over 95% of the catches whereas the opponents surprisingly appeared weak in all departments! Hopefully we can maintain such a momentum for the upcoming games.


Score Card

IECC Vs Tigers 2010/04/04

IECC Vs ITCC

Date: April 4, 2010

Edogawa Ground

The game got off to a delayed start under gloomy skies. IECC started on the back-foot as they were 1 player short, were missing some key players and then went on to lose the toss as well. ITCC had no hesitation in batting first.

Despite taking the field with just 10 players the IECC opening bowlers, Rajesh & Shailaj, put up a fine show. They bowled an immaculate line & length and did not allow the ITCC opening pair of Anil & Rajeev to get away. Even singles were restricted as ITCC scored just 18 runs in the first 7 overs. With no option left but to take risks, Rajeev and Anil started taking risky singles. Rajeev beat a direct throw from Ganesh, but was not that lucky the second time as another accurate throw from Ganesh found him short. Mithun survived a very close run-out shout before even having faced a ball, but did not last long as he holed out to long off, of his first delivery. Rajesh held on to a well judged catch off Shailaj. Every batsman found the going tough as Raju and Saijesh con

With the asking rate at exactly 3 runs per over IECC opened with Santosh and Rahul. Rajeev operating from round the stumps, scalped Santosh caught at slip with the one that went across in the second over of the innings. Atul came out and hit a few lusty blows to keep the score ticking. Rajeev once again cut short his innings with a caught and bowled. Javed joined Rahul in the middle and kept scoring aggressively. He was trapped in front trying to play across the line to a straight one. Rahul fell trying to hoick one over long on. Raju and Sanjeeb were cleaned up by balls that kept low and suddenly a game which should have been an easy chase for the batting side was on the line. 26 runs were needed with 4 wickets in hand. Saijesh batted beautifully under pressu

It was a game which should have been won comfortably by IECC but were made to sweat by the Tigers. With the KCL starting next week, IECC have a lot of improvement to do if they are to advance in that tournament.

Brief score card
ITCC 89/10 in 26 overs Anil (38), Ganesh (3/10),Saijesh (3/13)
IECC 93/8 in 24 overs Saijesh(18), Atul(15), Rajeev(2/35)

Detailed scorecard below....