Location - Shiloh
Link to the scorecard
Finally, the day envisioned by Rajesh U dawned... The first official game of the newly formed TCL kicked off between DCC and CCC at Shiloh...
Home Minister Employment Services decided to allocate an additional resource to the Daddy Day Care project which has already consumed Ivan for the first 5 games of the season... Sanjeewa's wife decided to take a day off which meant Sanjeewa had to pull out at the last moment and take care of the future wicket keeper of Team USA... This led to a lot of rehashing within the lineup... Nikhil had to step into the 11 and Ravi had to don the keeping gloves... Along with these 2 absences, with Pratik nursing an injury, Faraz changing teams and Neal busy elsewhere, Team DCC had a new look...
In one way, this took DCC to the other end of the spectrum from its last game... In the PACC playoff game last year, DCC played with 10 batsmen and 1 bowler whereas today's game, we played with 8 bowlers in the playing 11... Divesh, Prasad and Shrini were the only ones who were not qualified bowlers... That also meant that out batting was really thin for the day...
The game started with Mahesh and Divesh opening for DCC against the canny inswing of Pinku and the gentle outswing of Vijay... Mahesh was looking to be positive but the running was circumspect... Divesh was aiming to survive the new ball... Mahesh eventually mistimed a gentle outswinger from Vijay to be caught at point...
Prasad went in with a motive to consolidate... He batted with responsibility, curbed his natural instincts and played solidly... Divesh and Prasad took the team to the first drinks break without any further damage but at the cost of run rate... At 12 overs point, we were about 25 odd for 1...
Both started opening up after the break... Runs started trickling in but Prasad was out in a weird scenario... CCC appealed for caught behind which Ron Knight did not agree... When Prasad mentioned that the ball went of the pad and not of the bat, Ron gave him out LBW instead...
Ravi was sent to bump up the run rate and his bat started doing the talking from the first ball itself... First one went for a DLF maximum and the second one for a boundary in the same location... But, it turned out to be a blink-and-you-miss inning... The third ball was mistimed and gently settled in the lap of deep point fielder... And Ravi promised a lot and delivered little... But those two shots brought the chirp back into the batting camp...
Niranjan decided to promote himself and take things in his hand now... He came in and suddenly the game looked entirely different... He hit a boundary and ran aggressively between the wickets... It rubbed on to Divesh and he smacked a sixer at deep midwicket out of nowhere... But just when we thought that our innings was being mended, Niranjan attempted a risky double and caught short of the crease...
Trip was sent in to consolidate... He and Divesh started to get things moving but Divesh lost his wicket as well... Trip was batting well but he tried to clear the infield without much timing and was caught at mid-off... Rishi soon lost his wicket when a ball bounced more than he anticipated and ended at first slip... We were at 96/8 at this time...
Then came the most exciting phase of the game... Neeraj came to the crease as if he was practicing for the last hour in the IPL nets and hit 2 sixers and 2 boundaries... All of a sudden, CCC was on the backfoot... Nikhil and Neeraj ran quickly between the wickets... Neeraj was striking it cleanly and the partnership was 30 runs before anyone realized what happened...
The aim was to go all the way till the 35th over without any risks... But an inswinger got Neeraj and like the proverbial London bus, the second one followed immediately... Sid could not get his bat down in time and was castled... The innings ended at 126 in the 30th over...
After a 30 minute break, DCC came on the field determined to defend 127... Niranjan started very well at one end and Mahesh attacked at the other end... Mahesh was not very lucky to be rewarded for his hard work but Niranjan got true rewards for his... He bowled 7 overs on the trot and got all the 3 wickets when the batsmen were playing solid defence... The one to take out Vishwas Putta was a gem... Vishy knew that Niranjan was bringing the odd one in and was playing safe, but he could not even realize what was going on when an inswinger got the top of the off stump... To sum it up, he led brilliantly from the front...
Rishi took over from one end and Mahesh came back from the other end... Rishi was bowling well within the circumstances of the game and keeping it tight and interesting where Mahesh was giving a display of attacking bowling against 2 aggressive batsmen -- Keyur and Vinay... Finally he was rewarded when he hit the sticks of Vinay... At this point, CCC was abt 70 odd for 4 and still needed 50+ runs and anything could have happened...
Sid took over from Mahesh and took the wicket of Pinku with his first valid delivery.... But he had real trouble controlling the swing... At the other end, spin in the form of Trip and Neeraj was tantalizing though not threatening... With the asking run rate dipping with every hit, we need some attacking option... Sadly, all the bowlers on show were not attacking enough... CCC won with 5 wickets and a lot of overs to spare...
Not the best way to start the season, especially without important players... But, we can not change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand... And today we did not play our hand very well... A lot left to be desired...
Stay on the wicket as long as possible WITH an intent to score... Try scoring the runs and they will come... No bowler is threatening enough to dish out maiden after maiden and we should not make anyone look so threatening... Follow the basics and the results will show...
On an optimistic note, even though the team was weak and the batting was wafer-thin, the way the team fought was commendable... Neeraj impressed with his attitude while batting whereas Niranjan and Mahesh valiantly made it a close affair... Fielding was good with a few direct hits being really tight... Ravi stepped in the keeper role and performed well...
Points of improvement -- Just because the big players are not playing, does not mean that we should give up without a fight... Not playing 35 overs is a crime... Throwing away the wicket after getting set is a big mistake and we are doing it in bunches every single game...
While Mahesh fixes the next match against NCSU (fixing the availability of the field), lets do all the basics right... Next time when I write the match report, let it be a winning one...
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