Awesome is the word that comes to mind when i think of our batting performance today. Chasing down 87 runs in the 13th over against a team that has haunted us in recent times speaks volumes of our performance.
Team: Mani, Suresh, Sridhar, Jagan, Yogesh, Ram, Muthu, Krishnan, Madhavan, Sudharshan and Vignesh
Match Result: 'Da Freaks beat the Skippers by 5 wickets.
I lost the toss again this week and the opponents chose to bat. The opponents got off to a brisk start losing just 1 wicket in the first 5 overs and had scored 36 runs. Mani had got a strike in his rather unconvincing two over spell. Suresh was struggling with his rhythm.. I bowled the 6th over and picked up 2 wickets - one courtesy a good catch by Yogesh and another, a skier that i caught off my own bowling(Mani graciously let me take the catch..:)) after taking the catch i was almost near square leg although I dint realise I had ran that far..:) but it was a key wicket as that batsman (Thameem) has punished us in the past with his aggressive batting..:) and then me and Sridar bowled a couple of quiet overs though I was lucky not to get it with my full tosses. The turning point was Mani's over with 2 wickets.. Mani was simply too good in his second spell..in between I had bowled a two more overs, Sri and Jagan bowled one each.. The opponents scored 86 which was a good score but we should have stopped them between 70-75 runs.. our ground fielding was not upto the mark..
Ram and Yogi, our trusted pair, began the chase. Disaster struck when Ram was run out in the first over. Muthu joined Yogi and they kept the score ticking. Muthu, with his over the head shots through point/third man/fine leg was an able ally to Yogesh who was simply playing his role.. We had reached 23 in 4 overs. Yogesh has been consistent of late and did the same today.. But we lost a couple of wickets in the form Muthu and Krishnan quickly. Maddy joined Yogi and these two kept the chase going wit some common sense batting. Maddy took a bye runner (Ram) and seemed in good touch. We had reached 50 in 9 overs.. When Yogi got out, I chose to send Jagan. I had told Jagan that I am making him bat ahead of Sridar and that he has to come good. The guy didnt disappoint me.. after a couple of edges/hit and misses, he really took over with some powerful strokes through the leg side. Maddy was ticking the singles and twos and even scored a boundary. The best thing abt Maddy's innings was that there were very few dot balls. Jagan hit a straight six in the 11th over and after that the target came down to 16 runs off 3 overs. From thereon, we just had to play out the 3 overs to win and we finished it off in style. Jagan got out eventually and Sudharshan finished it off with a four.
Maddy's composure and Jagan's brutal knock are the two things that I will remember this game for.. Great follow up to our last week's victory.
Cheers
Vignesh
No comments:
Post a Comment