Average Bowling and Decent Chasing

Hi this is Maddy again, after a couple weeks of different dissections.

Ground - Triangle ground (we are fed up with this tournament business in alfonso, plainly sucks)
Opponents - Some local fellas
Our Team: Maddy, Vicky, Mani, Jagan, Raghav, Raghu, Sri, Ram, Yogi and Mr. Ambani (Suresh), only 10 this time

I am not commenting on who won the toss, we were asked to bowl first and it goes well for us in this heat. Raghu was asked to Captain the side and he seems to take it quite seriously, changing the field and bowlers around as he saw fit under the circumstances, not all his decisions were right but at least there was just one guy who was calling the shots today for us. He can only get better.

Our bowling for the first 6 overs were either quite brilliant or decent enough to suck the wind out of an ordinary batting team's sails. It even prompted Raghu to call on Raghav for an over, which started the landslide. It was simple equation. Pitch the ball, even if it is to a driving length and you get away with just a few runs. Full toss, leg stump, forget to run. It was raining boundaries in the last few overs especially of Mani and Yogi. Before that Sri and Mani did bowl some good overs to get a heap of wickets, we just lost the plot mid-way. From 27 in 6 overs to 80 in 12, the scoreline speaks for itself. Fielding-wise we were not bad, overthrows were controlled. Catches, most of them, taken except I remember Vicky misjudging one in the first over, but it did not cost us much.

Chasing 81 in 12 overs, we started off with Yogi and Raghav. Raghav ran himself out, but I guess we were not specific on a few things like a run being granted if it hits others inside the circle. Jagan joined Yogi for a few overs and the runs trickled. The push came when Vicky joined Yogi at the crease and they started running hard and we were abreast of the run rate. Raghu and Ram joined the party to take us close to the total, Raghu specifically was in good touch. With 8 runs to get in 2 overs, I joined Ram at the crease. Kaipilla in his usual self was trying.... something and thank god he eventually got run out. How did he ever think that I would run for a single to the danger end when the ball was in the keeper's hands, only he can answer :) Sridhar and I ran the next necessary runs in the end and I didn't get to face a single delivery :(

We won and overall it was quite good to be back to winning ways after the humiliating loss the other week.

I'll try to post a few more videos.

Ciao.

Humiliating Performance........

Da'Freaks :
Mani,Vignesh,Maddy,Raghavendran,Raghu,Sridhar,Suresh,Yogesh,Ram,Kailash,Jagan

Blog by: Manikandan(Not a great time to post my first blog!..)

We Lost by 32 runs after winning the toss and electing to bowl which has been our strategy these days. I would rate our bowling attach right up there with the best teams going around in tennis ball cricket, very rarely you get to have the luxury of having people bowling at some serious pace just that if we can combine it with little more discipline and vastly improved fielding performance we would be easily able to restrict the opponents to even more below par scores.

Scorecard: South Madras Stallions---95/9 in 14 overs
Da Freaks---------------------------63/9 in 14 overs

The defeat margin should say the story and i can hardly remember a game where we have been beaten up so com promisingly..Starting up with the few good things that we did on a day we were literally thrashed!..Having decided to bowl first jagan and suresh started off the proceeding as i wanted to hold myself back just to stop the leakage of runs in the middle overs. They did a prety decent job in the first four overs even though we did not manage to pick up any wickets. Myself and Sridhar shared the attach for the next four overs but i was not able to hit my stride with the congested crowd hardly allowing me to have a run up but no excuses after playing for so long in this kind of environment should have done better even though i picked up 4 wickets including the all important wicket of hari clearly i could have done better,just gave away few free hits with some poor bowling. Yogesh and vignesh were the stars of the day with the ball both restricted the run flow and picking up wickets as well with the kind of start and the way they batted in the middle we managed to pull things back a bit and in the end we were set a target of 96 to chase which i felt was 10 odd runs too many. Our fielding was shocking in explicable would have easily gave away 10 to 15 runs with ram having a worst day in the field managing to misfiled in all the positons he was made to stand and myself too did misfield few shockers along with others we clearly need to back our bowlers who run in hard in the heat and put in a big effort and it should be backed up by the fielders.

What followed after all this was something terrible i am just in search of words for the batting performance we displayed. Ganguly had gone about and said his team played rubish after the loss against bangalore but wat we did today worst than all that. Vignesh and maddy opened the innings and after 6 overs it was all done and dusted the ball hardly went off the square our batsmen struggling to even get bat on ball clearly we lacked the skills to combat some very good bowling and hari was just too hot to handle for our batsmen with someone like yogesh who is better player in our team technically found it hard to even get bat on ball they kept firing the balls on our middle and leg stumps for which we had no clue. All the faces told the story they were all shocked and the worst thing is i had to see all this from the centre umpiring. We managed to score 63 just because they brought about few of their weak bowlers.

We lost the three match series 2-0 but we had our chances to win the first game made a mess of it. We need to be disciplined if we really wish to improve as a team or as an individual this is something i just wish our boys will realize sooner than later we can clearly work out on our weakness as i have said before got great bowlers we can bowl to each other on our weak ares improve ourself but for which we require that discipline of being there in the ground on time and practice before the match no point saying our middle order has not had enough chances we need to be in touch with some good practice.

We better convert this anger and frustration on our opponents next week and come with a spirited performance. May be the next time we meet hari & Co got to prove them few things but before that we need lots of soul searching to do and lift our performance!..Come on guys!..lets start doing it!..

Choked in the end - Lost by 16 runs

Though the margin of defeat is 16 runs, we had 10 balls to spare and it must be said we had lost from a winning position. We lost the last 6 wickets for just 12 runs. In short, we choked. How else could I explain the team getting all out for 68 when we were cruising at 56-4 in the 9th over?? We needed 29 off 5 overs and we just lost our way.
Maddy skipped today's game. Freddie lost the toss and the opposition decided to bat. Mani and Suresh started off. We got a wicket in the first over as I took a catch in the deep mid-wicket off Mani. Suresh/Raghu combo produced a run out and Suresh rattled the sticks for the third wicket. But runs were leaking and they scored 26 off the first 4 overs.
Jagan bowled an ordinary 5th over giving away more than 10 runs and Sridar, kind of, emulated Jagan. But Sridar picked up a wicket and they were 50/4 in 6 overs. I bowled the 7th over and managed to dismiss the big left handed guy caught and bowled. They were getting runs easily though the wickets were falling. They had posted 73-5 in 9 overs. Then Raghu produced what I call a "lucky over" because he got 2 wickets, both off useless deliveries. Suresh took a catch in deep point and I took a catch behind the wicket. The former, was a short ball and the latter, a full toss. They were 77-7 after 10 overs. Suresh got 3 wickets in one over, the 12th over - two were caught behind and the third one was bowled. We were lucky to get them all out for 84 as a total of 100 was not beyond their reach.
We started off the chase with Jagan and Sudarshan. Both wanted to leave home early and they left the pitch early. Jagan was run out and Sudarshan caught down the leg side. Ram joined Yogesh in the middle and before he could do any damage, he was run out, which he thought was not out. But Freddie gave it out. Yogesh was finding his touch after a sedate start and with Raghu, he found an able ally to begin the fightback. We had stumbled to 21-3 after 5 overs. Raghu was in good form striking the ball well. Raghu even hit a six through widish long on. It was a great shot considering how effortless it was. Yogesh got out trying force the pace and Freddie joined Raghu. Freddie was equally severe on the bowling hitting fours on the leg side and we cruised to 56-4 in the 9th over. Thats when Raghu called Ram(running for Fred) for a non-existent run and Freddie was out. Raghu got out in the very next over. This was the turning point as the batsmen who came in (Myself, Sridar, Mani, Kailash and Suresh in that order) jus couldn't finish it off. 25 runs were needed off 4 overs. Sridar went for a wild swipe and was bowled. Mani got run out as he tried to take advantage of an overthrow [he says it was my fault, but I thought there was no run:-) ]. Kailash tried his best but fell for a reverse sweep and Suresh was bowled to leave me stranded at the other end. We eventually were all out for 68 in the 13th over.
The positives were Raghu and Freddie's batting. But the negatives were our lack of finishing skills and our bad ground fielding. I think its time we nominate one wicket keeper and stick to him rather than playing musical chairs. Today, the byes were on the higher side. These little things matter a lot on hindsight.
Lets hope we get over these next week.