Good Chase and a Satisfying Victory

We might start to have a good run of games at Alfonso, there wasn't any tournament so far. Today's match was against Diwakar's team and 'Da Freaks for the day were Mani, Maddy, Vicky, Freddie, Sri, Yogesh, Sudarshan, Ganesh, Suresh, Jagan and Muthu.

We lost the toss and we were made to chase a score, which in fact bode well for a lot of us as we needn't stand under the harsh sun. Mani and Suresh opened the bowling for us. Mani took a wicket in his first over but Suresh gave a few runs including a six. The start wasn't ideal but we got a couple of wickets and were hoping to peg them back in the middle overs. Freddie bowled a magnificent first over which was a maiden and he also picked up a wicket. We did not control the runs as we would have liked though. Even though there weren't many extravagant shots, the opponents were picking up twos at will and rotating the strike amicably. We did not change the field much and that allowed them to pick their spots. Jagan, Suresh, Mani and Vicky completed the quota of overs but by the end of 14, we let them score 76 runs. We need to tighten our fielding a bit more and reduce the number of conversions.

We started our chase with Yogi and Muthu. They started steadily and at the end of 4 overs we had scored 19 runs but lost Yogi in the process. Sri entered the frame as one down. Within the next over, Muthu was out caught near slip, which brought Ganesh to the crease. But he also did not last long and he got out caught behind. The familiar feeling of losing a bunch of wickets at the start or in the middle. I was given the nod ahead and when I went in I was clear about a couple of things: no run out (Sri and I had had a lot of mix ups) and I am running for myself no matter what. Sri and I were steadying the innings and we got the chase back on track. When Sri got bowled, in came Sudarshan and our partnership in the middle overs gave us the impetus towards shutting the game out. We quietly took 7, 7 and 11 runs in the 7-9 overs spell, no extravagant shots but good, sensible batting. By the end of 10 overs we needed 23 to win and that is when my slow running between the wickets was becoming a concern. Took a bye then. Sudarshan fell soon after but we kept abreast of the run rate. In an almost anti-climax the penultimate over from Bala produced two wickets, Vicky and Myself but Freddie came in and along with Jagan, calmly steered us through.

Correct me if I am wrong, nor run outs from our side today, which was great :)

We have won three in a row now and it feels good to be back on the winning ways. 'Da Freaks, as always, rulz :)

Cheers,
Maddy
for 'Da Freaks