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.