CSCA League | 1st Match | Padi XI

Date: 17th October 2010

Venue: DB Jain College "A" Ground

Opposition: Padi XI

RnW Playing XI: KK, BK, Karthi, Adi, Anba, Guna (Wk and Captain), DD, Pradyot, Pradeep, Sankar and Praveen.

12th Man: Bala

13th Man: Prabu

Summary of the match:

Overheard a conversation between two batsmen of Padi XI in a mid-pitch conference between overs.

Batsman1: "Arre dekh ke khel re. Woh bahut spin kar raha hai. Bada bowler lagta hai. Dekh ke khel". Watch out for this bowler and bat carefully. He is spinning it a lot. Looks like a stud bowler. Be careful.

Batsman2: "Theek hai re". Ok.

The person who overheard this and the bowler they are talking about are one and the same. But its okay, let us give it to the man for performing like a professional leg-spinner. Pradeep was adjudged Man of the Match too. He took 4 for 22 from his 4 overs and mopped up the tail while his left-arm counterpart, Praveen, contributed with 2 wickets too. Before them, was an inspired spell by DD and KK who took 4 wickets between them to leave the batting order open for the clean up procedure. It was a clinical performance by RnW. No scares, no goof-ups, no pressure, no tension - Just a simple application of the basics of cricket.

What did you miss? The ones who weren't at the ground.

1. Karthi's ability to focus. He even threw his cap off while chasing a ball because he was concentrating on stopping the ball from going to the boundary.
2. DD's uninterrupted 6-over spell. (I forget the figures. Request Pradyot/ Sankar to update the group)
3. KK's ability to spot hidden talent in the adjoining ground! :) There were some 4 or 5 players who were hardly taller than the bat or the stumps they were playing with in the adjoining ground. It was a great sight to see those kids play with so much enthusiasm and desire.
4. Anba's catch in the slips. The ball was dying on him. He put his finger below the ball just in time to take the catch. Professional looking slip catch it was.
5. Karthi's football-inspired act. Karthi (long-off) and Bala (long-on, substituting for DD) went for a skier and I don't think they called for it. In the end Karthi got a hand to the ball but then what followed was a deadly collision and both of them went down. In the process, the ball almost went to the boundary. Bala recovered and picked up the ball to throw it back into play. Karthi was still lying down rolling over, apparently, in pain. On subsequent interrogation it was found that Bala's ribs were hurting while Karthi appeared fine. So the rolling over and all that was probably in the hope of getting Bala a red card we all guessed.
6. Sankar got a wicket - clean bowled. Okay okay now, let's not conclude on our opponent's batting ability by just this one wicket. Even Pradeep got 4. All numbers 6,7,8 and 10.
7. Karthi's flick to short square leg for a quick single. He was promoted to #3. He was focusing so much that he just stared into the nothingness beyond when the umpire said, "Batsman, three balls to go. Right arm over the wicket". Karthi was in that zone.
8. The MoM treat at Ascendas Food court. Karthi ordered 14-idly-sambhar. When it was ready I carried it to the table we were all sitting on and announced, "14-idly-sambhar" around 5 times. Asked around as to who had ordered for this. Nobody owned up. After a while, Karthi reacted, "Oh yeah I ordered". He was still in that zone.

If anybody thinks I have missed something, please feel free to add on! :) Overall, so much fun and clinical precision is rarely found together. I enjoyed this Sunday morning again! Thanks RnW!

Love,

Adi.

Runwees Cup 2010

Friendship Series has given us a good understanding of ones' ability in bowling and batting. All those net sessions had finally been paid off. At one time during the Series, we thought we will be out of the race even before we begun.

However, the guys played well and we got back into the race by putting up some superb performance. One of the highlights of this series would be Adi's knock of 50 runs (his first fifty!) and KK's dedicated bowling. And even as a team, I think we have improved a lot. Our fielding has improved as well.

Even though we got knocked off in the Semi-finals, the way we carried on in the Friendship Series paints a true picture of how each one is committed towards their game.

On a personal front, I was unable to play some of the crucial matches in this series and that is what I regret most. Anyway, I hope that I will make myself fully available for the team and help them win more matches in the future.

And some interesting statistics our players performance in Friendship Series:




With the completion of Friendship Cup 2010, we now look forward to Runwees Cup 2010. This is an internal series match which is most likely to be played in April - May. We will be shortly announcing the playing 11 for teams Runs and Wickets.

Just a quick intro for the upcoming series:

Highlights of Runs N Wickets versus Royal Indians

Registering its first victory during the last weekend match gave our team much needed confidence in our ability to bowl and bat well. Below is the highlights of the match which was recorded by me.




Man of the Match - Guna 68 (59) and 1 wicket.

Second Wicket Partnership between Guna and Murali - 144

Wicket takers: KK, VijayaRaj, Arun, Dinesh, Guna.

Scorecard can be found here.