Match Report: JECC vs Mavericks 05/12/13

-By Murali

Intone Eagles Won: Mavericks Sports Club:121/10 in 33.2 , Intone Eagles
Cricket Club:122/4 in 25.1

Score Card:
http://www.dreamcricket.com/clnj/scorecarddisplay.aspx?gameid=7080

Great job guys, we registered our 1st win of the season.

Preview: The field was wet with puddles all over, Mavericks put in a lot of
effort in clearing up the puddles as much as they could and made the game
possible. Due to delay in this process, the game was reduced to 35 overs.

Toss: We won the toss and it was no brainer to field fist as the wicket was
soft and damp.

Man Of the Match: Ananth

Bowling/Fielding: I and Venkey opened the bowling attack, bowled well. But
were unlucky to pick up a wicket in the 1st spell. Their openers were
running hard between the wickets taking quick singles to keep the score
board ticking. We put in attacking field, closing up off-side and bowling
complete off stump line. They had no choice but to go for shots over mid-on
and mid-off to score some runs. Dhanu and Sid were brought into the attack
in 1st change. Both of them bowled really well. Sid's 2nd over yielded us 3
wickets : one run out - good work by Anurag at sq. leg + keeper Vijay and
two bowled. One of his delivers was like a dream ball for any bowler, just
taking off the off-stump and the wicket went flying back. Chinmay was very
sharp at mid-on and was spot on with his straight throw at the non-striker's
end and got us another run-out. Dhanu is getting very good with his Yorkers
and improving on it with every game. His spell was unplayable, bowled very
tight and picked up two key wickets. Their last pair tried to put up some
fight, but could not last long with good bowling from Venkey and Chinmay.
Chinmay picked up one wicket, excellent catch by Venkey at mid-off and
finally Anurag claimed the last wicket.

Batting: Having witnessed the opponents struggling to bat on the damp
wicket and with the wet outfield, we knew chasing 121 is not going as easy
as it sounds. On such a field, its equivalent to chasing 180 plus. But
Ananth's blitz transformed the run chase into a cakewalk. Our regular
openers Ravi and Dhanu opened the innings, Ravi was unlucky to get out on a
ball pitching on leg-side, brushing back off his leg and going on to the
stumps. Mavericks were very excited to see a wicket of their 1st ball. But I
am sure they realized it pretty soon that their excitement is short lived as
it didn't last even till the 2nd over. Ananth started off with a cover drive
boundary as soon as he walked in. They barely knew that he would shatter
their winning chances.

He looked in great form played attacking shots. Dhanu too was looking good
too until he was given caught behind where the ball went off to the keeper
from Dhanu's pads. Naga joined Ananth and played very sensibly, just
rotating the strike and letting Ananth take on the bowlers. Ananth continued
his assault hitting some big shots. He put up a great show with his cover
drive boundaries, hooked and pulled full tosses over final-leg and
mid-wicket boundaries finally ending up with 65. He was caught at deep
mid-wicket when we needed just 10 runs to win. Sid joined the party. Naga
remained not-out on 21 and brought us home convincingly.

Over all, we did well and am happy with the performance. Our Fielding was
spot on, bowled and batted sensibly. I am confident we shall continue to
showcase such winning performances in the future games too.

Match Report: JECC vs Tiranga at Mill Creek 05/05/2013

Match Report by "Murali"

Tiranga Won: Intone Eagles Cricket Club:127/10 in 37.0 Tiranga Cricket Club:128/2 in 25 overs.

Score Card: http://www.dreamcricket.com/clnj/scorecarddisplay.aspx?gameid=6962

Toss:  Tiranga won the toss and put us to bat.

I really wish, I could write a match report as good and interesting as Dilip. J …but since he wasn’t there yesterday…you guys have no choice, but to read my version …. (I think it’ll definitely be better than the one composed by Dhanu for last week’s game J )

Get a cup of coffee and start reading..it’s a little big …

Here we go !!!

Batting: We went with a different approach this time in the batting lineup. In trying to spread our batting strength across, I saved our regular opener Dhanu for middle order. Ravi  opened with Sudharshan, both of the started off well. Ravi, similar to his previous game was strong, picked up the balls really well and once he settled down, started off with a huge six over covers and continue scoring. Sudharshan too looked good rotating the strike, until he got out while trying to flick and missed a full toss…opening up his leg wicket and got bowled. The pitch was not playing well, we saw few odd bounces here and there and some of them were just rolling off the ground after pitching in.

Ananth started cautiously, got his signature cover drive boundary…just when we felt that he is ON …there were two lbw shouts which were turn down, but as we thought…the third lbw shout came in the same over forcing the umpire to raise his finger. Sent in Sesha to support Ravi, he looked good…got off with a mid-wicket boundary , but gave an easy catch to the keeper while trying to play a similar shot on leg side. Ravi on the other side continued to score a boundary here and here while rotating the strike with Sid. Sid looked in nice form, middling the ball, taking singles…but got out edging the ball to the keeper. Dhanu and Vijay tried to take control and play sensible, but could not negotiate the flighted balls and gave away their wickets while trying to hit the ball out of the park. Myself, Venkey, Vinod & Saurab were able to add few runs at the end. I was looking good, but ran out of partners at the other end. We were able to set a low target of only 127.

Bowling/Fielding: There were many occasions in the past where we won the games defending such low totals.  But on a fast outfield like Mil Crick park, we had no room for error in either bowling nor fielding. Every bowler MUST click and fielding should be top class to convert even half-chances into wickets. We did walk in with great confidence that we can do it. Started the opening spell with me and Sid. I was able to cut the ball towards the slips consistently and troubled the batsmen. Venky took a nice catch at long-on to send their opener back on the very 3^rd ball of the 1^st over. Sid & Venkey bowled well, but could not trouble their batsmen enough to get them out. I think we failed to convert couple of chances into wickets. Dhanu bowled really well, he injured himself while bowling but continued his spell without break ..it was a great spell. Their batsmen looked very comfortable, played cautiously ….were very patient,..picked up the loose balls only and carried their team to victory with ease.

Conclusion:  No doubt we put in good effort and tried hard, I am sure we could have done better had we performed to our potential. Each one of us are capable of playing much much better cricket. We just need to show more patience in batting, waiting for bad ball sometimes becomes very essential depending on the situation of the game. Let’s be more active and energetic on the field and show the killer instincts. I am sure if we had Paradise Chicken biriyani for lunch, we would have been tigers on the field. We would have seen a Jonty Rhodes in Ananth on the field J .

Well ! This is a match report and I had to put in the facts of the game. The nature of the game is such..we have good days and bad days. J ..Let’s set it aside look, forward on performing better in the next game. We have a wonderful team and everyone is a great team player. I am very confident… we’ll bounce back and bounce back strong. 

Match Report: NJ Barons vs JECC at Far hills, 04/28/2013(

Match Report by  "Dhanushka"

Score Card:
http://www.dreamcricket.com/clnj/Scorecarddisplay.aspx?gameid=6822

We lost to NJ Barons by 33 runs. They batted first and scored 223/8, we were all out for 190 in 38.x overs.

In my opinion, though we lost it was a good match; most of us didn’t get to play a practice match so we were still rusty.

Bowling

Murali opened bowling with Venky. Though they hit a six off the first over and started strong Venky got one of the openers out with a catch to Murali. First change was Sid and Lahiru. Lahiru got the next wicket with another simple catch to long off. I bowled a 6 over spell and got 3 wickets. While Venky, Srinath, Ananth taking few more. After the second break they were 105 for 26 overs with 6 or 7 wickets. We lost the match in the 3^rd session; they were 8 down for 120 something with 12 overs to go. At the end, with some poor bowling they ended up scoring 223 for 8.

Batting

Me and Ravi opened batting and had a great start, Ravi had few sixes off deep backward point. I got out caught and ball when we are at 46, Ananth and Ravi looked really good together. Ravi got out to another caught and ball when we were at 76. Sid and Naga got out cheaply. Until Ananth was there, we were on course to win the match. Ananth got out at 59 with a bad LBW decision, he was bowling round the wicket and he got hit on his thigh pad. Lahiru, Murali, Sucha, Shesha and Srini chipped in to get us to 190.

Fielding

This being our first match, we did really well. There were two catches missed, a very easy catch by me. He was their best batsman, but good thing he got out without scoring anymore runs in the next over. He was also dropped earlier on by Naga on a tough inside edge.

We did give too many easy singles and doubles. That is something we can really improve on. When we cut down the runs pressure will be on the batsmen.