A Liberal Sarcasm

Today’s game was a centre piece of what looked like a staged satire in which both team’s shared the spoils. To begin to say that we had total control of the game and then let it slip away would probably convey the meaning but not the disappointment.

Here is how it unfolded,

Today’s game was the start of the tri-series involving ourselves, Dinesh’s team and Shanker’s team. We were pitched up against Shanker’s team today. As it happens a plenty of times, we lost the toss. Not that we were complaining of bowling first, it was really hot today @ alfonso. We had to field an under-strength team today as Sridhar, Raghav, Ram, Jagan, Mani and Goutham was not available for the match for different reasons. To be honest, I thought we were good enough on the day to beat that team.

Guys were Myself, Vicky, Raghu, Suresh, Yogesh, Anand, Vivek, Goutham’s Uncle, Ganesh, Suresh’s friend and Muthu.

We started the proceedings with Suresh and his friend. And boy did they bowl well! Suresh in particular was amazing as the opponents had no answers to our attack and they were tottering at 16 for 6 in 5 overs. But we didn’t tighten the noose after that, we probably shouldn’t have let them cross 50 from that position but some missed catches and lazy fielding let us down. Yogesh and Vicky tried their best with the ball but they crawled their way to 69 off 13.3 overs, we got them all out. Outstanding performance with the ball by Suresh saw him take 5 wickets, team’s first ever?

I started our chase with Ganesh. A huge controversy started early on when the opponent’s were claiming to have run me out as I wasn’t at the crease. What happened was that I played the ball close to the fielder and there was an over throw. Neither I nor Ganesh saw where the ball went so we were not prepared to run for over throws. After several cries, I did start to run when some one from our side said that the ball crossed the boundary, so I was up with Ganesh at the other end and chatting with him. In the mean time, it so happens that the ball hasn’t crossed the boundary, the opponents ran me out. It was just too crazy and after several arguments, they let me play.

Ganesh got out immediately afterwards and I was joined by Vicky. We two were laying a solid platform when Vicky got out caught behind. Our Mr. Dependable Yogi was next. What happened next was another howler, this time by the Umpire (Vivek). I slashed at a ball outside off stump and missed, missed it by a long distance. Some how Vivek heard a nick in between and gave me out!!

Raghu then partnered Yogi but, for a change, he got run out. We never really had any partnership afterwards as everyone else wanted to slog but not give the strike to Yogi. That included Suresh, Gautham’s Uncle, Suresh’s friend and Vivek, though he got some valuable runs at the end. We kept loosing wickets because the batsmen didn’t want to think. We needed just 16 off 4 overs and got Yogi batting brilliantly, but we were 8 down!

Vivek start was like watching a horror flick but he managed to get some very useful runs and we were comfortably placed at 62 in 11 overs. Vivek got out edging the ball back going for a flamboyant cover drive. At last it was Nathari Anand’s turn to have a go. Yogi got 5 runs off the 12^th over and we needed 3 from 2 overs. Yogi defended the first three balls of the penultimate over and nearly got out Dhoni-style as against Pakistan in the recent match in the 4^th ball but managed 2 runs off the next one. He should have finished it off having played so far but he defended the last ball and gave Anand the strike for the last over with the scores at level.

Anand played all around a straight one and his stumps were uprooted.

Cheers,

Maddy