Match Report: Eagles vs Tigers, 06/24/12 @ far hills

by Murali

IntoneEagles Won : Intone Eagles Cricket Club:260/6 in 40.0 Tigers Cricket Club:240/10 in 37.0

Man of the Match : Sekhar (5 overs, 20 runs, 5 wickets) We won the toss and batted first.

Batting: Dilip, Dhanu and Naga continued from where they left off from previous game and in addition Lucky joined the party scoring his long awaited half-century. Dilip (40) and Dhanu (68) once again provided a solid opening partnership on which Lucky and Naga capitalized to put up a mammoth total of 260 in 40 overs. Dhanu’s 50 is an amazing achievement. He finally broke his spell of getting out in the 40’s and scored 68…the way he was batting, had he shown a little more patience….I am sure he would have scored his maiden century. Hopefully he’ll achieve it in the next games.  Naga once again showcased his batting skills..playing his shots, rotating the strike with Lucky. Chinmay too displayed some fireworks with 2 boundaries and a six in his 16 runs during the last overs of the innings. An excellent batting display Eagles have ever seen.  


Bowling: We went into the field very confidently. I and Lahiru opened the bowling. I got into my rhythm right from the 2nd ball consistently beating their openers…either the ball would just missing the off stump or a leading edge. TCT saved their regular opener (top scorer) to come down the order in game(probably their game plan) and the openers were sent in just to see off our strike bowlers. The openers were not able to score anything at the same time unable to play me and Lahiru..they were just seeing off our bowling. Brought in Lucky in the 5th over to get them and he answered right-away getting us the break-thru forcing the batsman to drive a perfect length flighted ball giving leading edge to Dilip in the 1st slip (Sharp catch by Dilip). Got in Sekhar the next over and he too bowled a very tight line and length claiming their #3 batsman LBW 2nd wicket of their innings. Chinmay bowled well in sending their #1 batsman (lefty) back to pavilion, good catch by Sekhar at point. I got back into the attack hoping to get their main batsman (Afzal Hussain) along with Dilip, it did work to some extent, got Afzal forcing to drive the ball and giving a leading edge to Naga behind the stumps. I continued my spell as the batsmen were struggling against me. 


My 1st 7 overs yielded about only 18 runs, but my 8th over was very expensive giving away more than 10 runs and missed catches. Got back Lahiru as one of their lefty was batting and with a hope that Lahisru’s in-swinging natural action would get him. But it didn’t work that much. Dilip too bowled well, unfortunate to get wicket due to dropped catch (miss-judging the catch between the keeper and Dilip). Dhanu was in a little pain from the injury he picked up during the previous game, but still came forward to bowl for the team. I guess he was off in bowling yesterday and couldn’t control the flow of runs. The guy whom we dropped 3 times (all easy catches) ended up scoring 60 + along with one other batsman (lefty) and threatened to take away the game from us. Chinmay got us the break through setting up the batsman opening up their tail enders.


It was Sekhar at the end that did the job for us once again in the crucial last overs (they needed about 35 runs in 7 overs with 4 wickets in hand) and the game was well within their reach. He bowled a match winning spell claiming all the 4 wickets (all 4 were bowled) resulting in another great victory for us.  TCT guys (especially their captain) have a beautiful smile on their face, and they use sweet words when they talk to us during the breaks “they say –‘ hello brother Murali, how are you ‘ bla bla bla… but it’s the worst team we played with this season. We have seen teams who are upfront and argue on the field…that’s okay. But these guys do everything behind our backs. They could not take their 1st defeat with us couple of weeks ago..so what do they do ? they go and delete the score-card ( I hope they know that deleting the score-card wouln’t change the game result J ). 


This game, they surely added at least 30 un-scored runs to their score-card while batting.   Fielding: As you can see, our fielding is degrading game by game, needs a lot of improvement especially around catching. If it were not for the dropped catches, we would have packed them up way early. Yes, there is definitely room for improvement in bowling/fielding changes based on the situation of the game. I am trying my best, but I’ll work on it and try to improve.  Overall, it’s great to see us winning every game this season. There has been tremendous improvement in our batting department with top order playing very responsibly and performing well consistently showing improvement with every game.  


I would like to recognize Dhanu for his batting this season so far. His every inning was amazing, he completely changed his batting style since he started opening the innings for us. Playing with great responsibility and patience in giving us a solid start. Keep it up Dhanu. This game’s 50 + is a well-deserved one.   


Cheers !! Murali.

Score Card

Match # 6017
Intone Eagles Cricket Club v/s Tigers Cricket Club
Far Hills
06/24/2012(40-over match)
Result	IntoneEagles Won Intone Eagles Cricket Club:260/6 in 40.0 Tigers Cricket Club:240/10 in 37.0
Comments	Both teams need to work on their over rates. Tigers had to hustle during their last 10 to barely squeeze 40 inside 3 hours. Intone Eagles fielding second took 3 and a half hours to bowl 37 overs. Tigers paid for poor fielding in 1st innings. Dhanu was dropped 1st ball at fine leg off a skied, top-edged pull and went on to make 68. Shekhar bowled superb spell at end of match to win game for Intone Eagles. Sixth wicket partnership between Mohammed Parves and Ruhul Khan looked like it would take Tigers to win, only 43 needed in 9 overs with 5 wickets in hand. Parves caught inside long on boundary in 32nd over going for 7th 6 sparked collapse.
Toss	Intone Eagles Cricket Club
Umpires	PeterDella Penna
Man of the Match	1.Shekhar Vajjhal
	2.Mohammed. Parves
Intone Eagles Cricket Club Innings (40 overs maximum) R B 4 6 Dilip Kovuri Bowled Ratul Habib 40 50 3 1 Dhanushka Haputhanthri Caught Ruhul Khan Ruhul Khan 68 66 3 3 Niladhar Rao Bowled Barun Dey 51 79 6 0 Nagarjun Aleti Caught Mohammed. Parves Jabed Ahmed 40 29 2 0 Chinmay Bhat Caught Mohammed Ahmed (Abdullah) Jabed Ahmed 16 11 2 1 Pavan Reddy Caught Ruhul Khan Jabed Ahmed 0 2 0 0 Swapnil Veer Not Out 4 3 0 0 Murali Vijjapurapu Not Out 0 0 0 0 Bala Devarajan Did not bat 0 0 0 0 Shekhar Vajjhal Did not bat 0 0 0 0 Lahiru Rathnayake Did not bat 0 0 0 0
Extras	(b 0, lb 8, w 34, nb 0)
Totals	(6 wickets in 40.0 overs) 260
FOW
Bowling O B M R W Remon Islam 7 0 1 31 0 Ruhul Khan 7 0 0 50 1 Ratul Habib 8 0 0 41 1 Afzal Hussain. 5 0 0 40 0 Saki Chowdhury 3 0 0 18 0 Jabed Ahmed 5 0 0 36 3 Barun Dey 5 0 0 36 1
Tigers Cricket ClubInnings (target : 261 runs from 40.0 overs) R B 4 6 Remon Islam Caught Shekhar Vajjhal Chinmay Bhat 33 46 1 2 Mohammed Ahmed (Abdullah) Caught Dilip Kovuri Niladhar Rao 2 12 0 0 Tanim Uddin LBW Shekhar Vajjhal 3 4 0 0 Afzal Hussain. Caught Bala Devarajan Murali Vijjapurapu 23 33 0 2 Ratul Habib Caught Nagarjun Aleti Dhanushka Haputhanthri 22 42 0 0 Mohammed. Parves Caught Dhanushka Haputhanthri Chinmay Bhat 68 52 3 6 Ruhul Khan Bowled Shekhar Vajjhal 33 26 1 3 Jabed Ahmed Bowled Shekhar Vajjhal 2 8 0 0 Barun Dey Not Out 4 8 0 0 Saki Chowdhury Bowled Shekhar Vajjhal 2 5 0 0 Hadis Kais Chowdhury Bowled Shekhar Vajjhal 0 5 0 0
Extras	(b 0, lb 5, w 42, nb 1)
Totals	(10 wickets in 37.0 overs) 240
FOW
Bowling O B M R W Murali Vijjapurapu 8 0 1 32 1 Lahiru Rathnayake 5 0 0 37 0 Niladhar Rao 1 0 0 9 1 Shekhar Vajjhal 5 0 0 20 5 Chinmay Bhat 6 0 0 38 2 Dhanushka Haputhanthri 7 0 0 62 1 Dilip Kovuri 5 0 0 37 0