Match Report
by
Ananth
JECC vs Middlesex Cricket @ Far Hills
8/25/16
Summary:
JECC won a low scoring thriller to register the team’s first
play-off victory since 2009. Having won the toss and batting first, JECC put up
a less than impressive 105 runs on the board. JECC bowled out Middlesex for 64
on the back of a 5 wicket haul by Chinmay.
Man of the Match:
Chinmay for a spectacular spell of
6.3-2-9-5.
Toss: Dilip
won the toss and had no hesitation batting first on a beautiful sunny day.
Batting: Our
philosophy is to bat first when conditions are good and put runs up on the
board on the strength of one of the top batting units in the division. Our
batting line up of Dhanu, Nitin, Myself, Sid, Srini, Chinmay and Dilip is
extremely formidable with Nitin being the highest scorer and everyone else
scoring 200 runs or above in the season. It was our home ground, we knew the
conditions and we were hoping to post a score above 180.
Dhanu and Nitin started of solidly with a few singles and
twos and were feeling out the conditions and the opening bowlers Zia and Ulfat.
Zia was generating some pace while Ulfat was trying to get his outswinger going
at medium pace. The ground was sluggish and it became apparent that we would
have to do a lot of running as the ball didn’t travel at all. In the 5th
over,
Dhanu fell against the run of play by finding the fielder at long –off,
playing a lofted drive. I walked in at no. 3 and was initially struggling to
find my timing. I typically like to hit a boundary early in my innings when the
field is up which gives me the confidence to carry on playing positively. But
today I was playing and missing and decided to take singles to give Nitin the
strike.
Nitin, on the other side, was starting to play fluently and
he started finding his shots on the on side including his trade mark pull shot
which got him a lot of runs in his 94 against Monroe, two weeks earlier. He
started taking the attack to the bowler.
On one instance, he walked out of the crease and the bowler was rattled
and bowled a big wide down the leg side. The scoring rate was hovering around 4
after a slow start and we were starting to feel good in the middle. It was then
that Nitin tried to do his walking out thing again, but this time he walked out
on the offside, leaving all three stumps exposed and Ulfat bowled a straight
one that Nitin missed down the legside and got his middle stump uprooted.
Cricket is a very funny game and it is always a very fine line between batting
like a genius and looking extremely foolish and unfortunately for Nitin, it
proved to be the latter. The look of horror and bewilderment on getting bowled
down the leg side is my memory from being at the non-striker end. Sid then
walked out at No. 4 and was looking to consolidate, with two wickets down.
Jamill, their first change bowler fired a Yorker at the base of off-stump and
Sid, unfortunately was late in bring his back down and bowled for 1 run. We
were 35-3 in 11 after his dismissal and needed a big partnership to steady the
ship. In walked Srini at no. 5. I love batting with Srini. He has all the shots
in the book and has got the “lazy elegance” associated with his batting which
makes him so attractive to watch when on song. By this time, I had started
middling the ball and finally got my lofted cover drive boundary. Srini hit a
bunch of twos on the off and onside and our run rate picked up again. WE were
back to 4 runs per over and put on a quick 25 runs partnership. There was
nothing in the bowling and we were looking set to take control of the game.
Again against the run of play, Srini spooned a full ball on
the legside straight to the mid-on fielder and we lost our 4th
wicket at 59. The in-form Chinmay then came in at no.6. He had been in terrific
form over the last few games, playing the role of finisher and scoring quick
fire 30s in three consecutive games. Unfortunately, today wasn’t his day and he
fell to a soft dismissal driving Jamill straight to the cover fielder. It was
up to me and Dilip to rescue the side from a precarious 63/5. Unfortunately, I
fell soon after, getting an edge while trying to run the ball down to third
man. It is a shot that I must cut down especially at Far Hills, where you may
not even get a single when you connect. Santosh was out LBW two balls later and
Pavan, our wicketkeeper batsman was given a horrendous caught behind when the
bat hit the ground but was miles away from the ball. We were now tottering at
72 for 8 and were staring down the barrel.
We had collapsed from a relatively healthy 59/3 in 15 to
72/8 in 20. Venki went in at no. 10 and him and Dilip started the slow recovery
process. Both of them applied themselves really well and put on a crucial 30
runs in 11 to 12 overs. The bowling at this time was highly accurate wicket to
wicket stuff that Dilip and Venki negotiated patiently. Dilip got a couple of
boundaries and we reached 100. 100 is a huge psychological landmark and it gave
us something to bowl at. Unfortunately Dilip fell soon after being caught
behind and Venki was out caught at short cover and we were all out for 105 in
33 overs. At the time, I was wishing we played out the remaining 7 overs to get
to about 130. We would have to bowl and field out of our skins to defend this
and win our first play-off game in forever. The 30 runs partnership that Dilip
and Venki put on though was crucial for us to have a chance in this game.
Bowling:
Going into field, our goal was to get 3-4 wickets before
they reached 50 in order to have a chance. Sid and Dhanu opened the bowling for
us. Sid was not fully fit as his shoulder was bothering him. Far Hills is not
his favorite ground as the ball stops on the surface and bounces like a tennis
ball as opposed to skidding through the deck on most matted pitches for him.
Both him and Dhanu kept it tight for the first few overs and bowled very few
wides. Sid was the first to strike when he got Usman caught by the substitute
Bhanu at mid-on.
Bhanu, Sagar and Naga had come to support us and it was an
amazing show of team spirit by them. We’ve never had the luxury of having
multiple substitutes. Sagar and Nag, kept running into the field between overs
to give us Gatorade and water and their cheering and support really encouraged
us. A big heartfelt thank you to the three of you for showing up and being
there for the team!
The one down batsman Vikas
and Ulfat, who opened the batting as well, settled down and played
patiently to take score past 30. Sid and Dhanu completed their opening spells
and Dilip being desperate for a wicked brought on Santosh first change to try
and pry out a wicket. Santosh bowled very well with prodigious turn and flight
but unfortunately couldn’t take a wicket. Venki bowled a couple of accurate
overs but the wickets weren’t coming. Dilip then tossed the ball over to
Chinmay after the bowling powerplay and he struck in his first over. Vikas, hit
a full blooded drive straight to Dhanu at short cover, who took a very sharp
chance to make it 34/2. Dilip brought himself on and we wanted to take one more
wicket before the first break. Their best batman, Amir had now come to the
crease. He is an attacking batsman and started hitting right from the get go.
Dilip tossed one outside the off, which Amir took a wild swipe at and ball went
sailing over Nitin at cover. Nitin ran back and took an excellent catch to get
rid of Amir. They were now 43/3 in 14 at the break. We were in this game now
and needed a couple more wickets to put more pressure on them.
First over after the break, the new batsman Taimour took a
wild swipe at the ball and was clean bowled by Chinmay. I do not know what the
batsman was thinking as he tried swinging a fullish ball on the off stump to
cow corner. We all started to sense that something special was happening. The
fielding was spectacular thoughout the chase so far and came up big once again
when Ulfat, the opener was runout after a clean collection by Pavan, who was
doing a great job behind the stumps. Mustafa came out to bat and we felt that
he was the last major obstacle enroute to our first play-off victory since
2009.
Fortunately for us, Abdul Rahim hit the ball straight to
Santosh standing at point and setoff for a suicidal run. Santosh cleanly picked
up and fired it to Pavan and we got Mustafa run out by a mile. They were 7 down
for 50 odd and we started smelling victory now. Dilip took himself off the
attack and after trying Santosh for a couple of overs brought back the old
warrior Dhanu to get a breakthough. Dhanu immediately rewarded us with the 8th
wicked, getting Zia, the opening bowler LBW plumb in front of the wicket.
Chinmay, bowling an uninterrupted spell, came back for his 7th over.
He got his 4th wicket when he got Abdul LBW and his 5th
wicket, when he got the last man LBW next ball to complete a tremendous
victory. It was a brilliant spell of bowling from
Chinmay, who stepped up, when
we need him the most. He was highly accurate and bowled just two wides in his
entire spell. He kept it simple and was rewarded for that. HE is now on a
hattrick when we faceoff againt SOMCAV in the quartes. He has always been a big
match player and seems to thrive in high pressure situations. I still remember
the time, he asked for the ball to bowl the last over against Hightstown in
2013, in a game that we had to win to avoid relegation to division 3. We had
only 5 runs to defend which we did when he got the last man out in that game.
This was the most complete bowling and fielding performance
by our team in my time playing with JECC. Our batting had carried us thus far
and got us into the playoffs and the bowling/fielding delivered when it
mattered the most, to get us a famous play-off victory. We play SomCav next in
the quarterfinals and look forward to the challenge of squaring off against
Jermaine Lawson and Shemroy Barrington. We have the team to beat them and if
our batting lives up to its potential and we continue to bowl and field like we
did today, we will beat them.
Let’s go win the next game guys. Goooooo Eagles!!!!!!
