Match Report by Murali
JECC won the game by 40 runs.
Princeton CC won the toss and chose to field first. JECC scored 183/10 in 39.4 overs. Princeton CC all out for 144 in 34.5 overs
Man of the Match: Dhanushka for a classy 62 runs and excellent bowling.
Batting: Dilip and Dhanu opened the innings, they gave us a great start putting up a 50 run partnership in just 12 overs. Ananth joined Dhanu after Dilip was caught-behind trying to negotiate an excellent delivery. Both of them continued the bat and had another good partnership of 61 runs. We lost our 2nd wicket (Ananth) at 111, he got out on another good ball while he tried to make room to cut the ball. Sid and Naga got out early while Dhanu hung around with Shivam and kept the score card moving.
Dhanu fell for 62, Vijay and Shivam played some good strokes as we entered into the last 8 overs. We took the batting power-play giving an opportunity to our stroke players a chance to go after the bowlers during the last overs. Well ! Power-play overs are very tricky, sometimes they work and othertimes it gets our batsmen. Both Shivam and Vijay displayed good stroke play. Venky and I did not last long, Manoj and Srinath batted really well putting up a 20 run partnership for the last wicket and got us to a decent total 183.
Overall 183 was a pretty good total to defend at our ground.
Bowling: Going into the field with great confidence, Venky and Sid gave us an excellent start. Sid continued his bowling form from the previous game, he was spot on and got us a breakthrough in his very 1st over, an unplayable delivery with good bounce…forcing the batsman to play the ball and edge it to the keeper. Looked like Venky thought...hey !..it’s my turn now and gets his man right away…again getting a caught-behind. Good take by Vijay behind the wickets moving to his leg-side.
I was introduced in the 1st spell, was rewarded immediately in my 2nd over and another one in my 3rd over. Both these wickets were a result of tight bowling and perfect fielding set-up by Dilip based on the batting style of their big scorer (Mohammad).
Shivam and Manoj took good catches. Dilip and Dhanu came on to bowl next. Dilip got his 1st wicket, catch at point by shivam. Dhanu continued to bowl tight on the other end. After that there was a long pause in getting the wickets as their #6 and #7 batsmen played very sensibly just rotating the strike and seeing off good balls. Srinath bowled well, but was unlucky to get a wicket. They kept it simple, played well except for the two chances they gave us..one in Srinath’s over and another in Dilip’s over.
Dilip brought back Sid and then Vijay in an effort to break the partnership, but things still were going their way. I came back on, tried hard…bowled well…but couldn’t break their partnership. Dhanu too bowled really well, they couldn’t score on him ..but at the same time they didn’t give away their wicket. Though it looked like the game was slipping away, we all knew that all we need is to break this partnership and we are back ON. We were very confident on winning the game and the fighting spirit was still ON.
After the 2nd break in the innings (30th over), Dilip took the challenge upon himself ..came back and bowled an excellent over getting us the wicket we had been waiting for past 15 overs. Rightly so …got in our speedster Venky to bowl the next over to wrap up things. He was deadly….even better than his first spell…they could not even touch his deliveries. He bowled a maiden over with 2 wickets. Amazing comeback spell. Dilip cleaned up their last batsman and won the game for us !!
With Dilip taking 4 wickets, Venky: 3 wickets, Myself: 2 wickets and Sid : 1 wicket pushed Princeton to the losing side.
Over all ! Great performance, Excellent fight back by Eagles. Enjoyed the game thoroughly. This is the kind of start we need for the season and we got it now. Let’s continue this winning habit and go all the way.
Cheers !!
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