Match Report: Eagles vs Galloway, 07/08/12 @ Far hills

by Murali

Result: Intone Eagles CC lost by 1 run. Galloway CC: 103 /10, Intone 102/10 Toss: Galloway CC

Bowling/FieldingGalloway CC won the toss and batted first. We did very well in bowling and fielding, I and Shakti started our bowling attacked and both of us were successful in sending their top order back to pavilion in our 1st spell itself. Shakti especially, was once again on fire claiming the opener in his 1st over and 2 more in his 2nd over in 2 consecutive delivers, he was unlucky to get a hat-trick but bowled an exceptional spell.
Their lower middle order showed a lot of resistance, granted they really didn’t know how to bat…but showed presence of mind patience…just defending any straight ball and leaving any ball out-side off stump. Our bowlers Shakti, I, Srinath, Lucky, Asif, Dhanu bowled well to break them, but they didn’t even try to score singles and really frustrated us. .Finally after the 3rd drinks break (30 overs) Asif (1 wkt) and Lahiru (3 wkts) got the break thru and packed them up. We did give lot of freebees in wides and helped them in putting up 103/10 in 37 overs. Uday (3 caught behinds) and Bala (2 caught behinds) did very well behind the stumps.

Batting:Chasing 103 in 40 overs seemed very easily achievable. Asif and Dhanu opened the innings. Asif looked good, started off with a boundary in the 1st over and Dhanu too started off well. But Asif fell in the 2nd over and Dhanu too followed him with a simple run-out. Lucky played well and seemed very comfortable, but he did not get support from the other end as our batting started falling apart, giving away wickets almost one in every over. Lahiru showed some intent with couple of good shots, but fell soon. Vishal got out on a very good ball, I tried to support Lucky in just rotating the strike and giving Lucky most of the strike, but I didn’t last long enough; went into completely defensive mode tapping down every ball and eventually gave away (lbw) trying to play a cross batted shot to get a single and give strike to Lucky which was really un necessary shot and that time. Lucky tried all he can…showed a lot of patience and worked hard to get us past 70 runs.

But he was unlucky to have given lbw on a ball that was clearly going down the leg-side when he tried to flick it for a single. Bala and Shakti tried, but Shakti got out which trying to score on a full toss which took the edge his bat, the ball popped-up high towards 3rd man and their fielder made no mistake in catching it. We are 78/9 again requiring 26 to win. Finally Srinath and Bala came to recuse us. Both of them batted really well..Srinath played with ease and with lot of confidence..starting off with his square cut boundary and both of them continued to march towards victory and got us very close requiring just 2 runs to win and 1 run to tie. We were all ready to jump up in excitement. Galloway ran out of bowlers, but they finally succeeded in forcing Srinath to steer a high bounce ball just outside off stump to the keeper. He was very unlucky; probably this is the 1st time he got out in his entire career with our club. Both Bala and Srinath did all the hard work to get us sooo close.

Their innings was the best part of our batting. Except for Lucky, Bala and Srinath none of us batted to our potential. They really showed us (all the batsmen who went and got out cheaply how to bat under pressure. There is definitely lot to learn from them. We should bat with ease and confidence. We should bat to score runs instead of just going under the shell and getting out cheaply under pressure. Granted we did not have couple of our strong and reliable batsmen (Dilip, Ananth, Chinmay and Sid), but this game ..having to chase such a low total.. ..we should have won it very easily.  Yes, it’s disappointing to loose such an easy game. It’s okay; it happens in the game of cricket. Even international teams having professional, skilled and experienced batsmen fall for a low total.

Overall it was a close game and we fought till the last run. Looking at the positive side, we bowled exceptionally well on a very hot and humid day, restricted the opponents to just 103. The five caught behinds in this game shows how good the line and length of our bowlers was. It’s just the batting failure that costed us the game. We all know how to bat and are all decent batsmen who scored well and proved it in the recent games this season. Past two games were just a bad patch. Let’s leave it behind us. I am very confident in our team’s strength. We’ll play with more confidence, bounce back strong and move forward with positive frame of mind.

Score Card

Match # 6062
Galloway Cricket Club v/s Intone Eagles Cricket Club
Far Hills
07/08/2012(40-over match)
Result	Galloway Won Galloway Cricket Club:103/10 in 40.0 Intone Eagles Cricket Club:102/10 in 33.0
Comments
Toss	Galloway Cricket Club
Umpires	Yasir Iqbal (5648)
Man of the Match	1.Deepak Chauhan
	2.Lahiru Rathnayake
Galloway Cricket Club Innings  (40 overs maximum)       R B 4 6 chintan biggie patel Caught   Shakthi Vijay 1 0 0 0 Chirag Desai Caught   Shakthi Vijay 0 0 0 0 harshal patel Caught   Murali Vijjapurapu 4 0 0 0 Deepak Chauhan Caught   Asif Mahmood 10 0 0 0 jigar k joshi Caught   Shakthi Vijay 10 0 0 0 sujay patel Caught   Sreenath Nandyala 3 0 0 0 Hassan A Dar Bowled   Lahiru Rathnayake 21 0 0 0 Jwalit Ray Caught   Lahiru Rathnayake 15 0 0 0 Arpan Shah Caught   Lahiru Rathnayake 6 0 0 0 Parag Kansagra Not Out     1 0 0 0 Niraj a Kansagara Run Out     0 0 0 0
Extras	(b 3, lb 3, w 15, nb 13)
Totals	(10 wickets in 40.0 overs) 103
FOW
Bowling O B M R W Murali Vijjapurapu 7 0 1 17 1 Shakthi Vijay 8 0 3 15 3 Sreenath Nandyala 3 0 0 8 1 Asif Mahmood 6 0 0 10 1 Dhanushka Haputhanthri 6 0 0 9 0 Niladhar Rao 4 0 0 20 0 Lahiru Rathnayake 4 0 0 25 3
Intone Eagles Cricket ClubInnings  (target : 104 runs from 40.0 overs)       R B 4 6 Asif Mahmood Caught   sujay patel 4 0 0 0 Dhanushka Haputhanthri Run Out     1 0 0 0 Niladhar Rao LBW   Deepak Chauhan 28 0 0 0 Nagarjun Aleti Caught   sujay patel 6 0 0 0 Udaykumar a Munshi Caught   Deepak Chauhan 4 0 0 0 Lahiru Rathnayake Caught   harshal patel 8 0 0 0 Vishal Vikram Bowled   jigar k joshi 0 0 0 0 Murali Vijjapurapu LBW   harshal patel 2 0 0 0 Bala Devarajan Not Out     10 0 0 0 Shakthi Vijay Caught   Deepak Chauhan 1 0 0 0 Sreenath Nandyala Caught   jigar k joshi 14 0 0 0
Extras	(b 2, lb 2, w 15, nb 5)
Totals	(10 wickets in 33.0 overs) 102
FOW
Bowling O B M R W jigar k joshi 1 0 0 26 2 sujay patel 8 0 0 31 2 Jwalit Ray 2 0 0 7 0 Deepak Chauhan 8 0 4 9 3 harshal patel 8 0 2 20 2 Hassan A Dar 1 0 0 5 0

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

Match Report: Eagles vs NJ Titans, 06/17/12 @ Sayreville

by Murali

Intone Eagles Won by 5 wickets NJ Titans CC : 197 / 7 in 40 oversIntone Eagles CC: 200 / 6 in 37 overs

Man Of the Match : Nagarjun. (61 Not-Out)

Kennedy Park is a beautiful ground with very nice out-field and a high scoring game was expected.  We lost the toss and obviously NJ Titans opted to bat first. They openers started off well, but were sent them back in no time in my 2nd over with Dhanu taking a diving catch in front of him at short-mid wicket and a nice caught behind by Naga. We gave their #3 batsman an easy chance early on…, but he played sensibly later and helped them put up a good total at the end.  They struggled to play Sid, but runs were flowing out due to quick outfield. Srinath (1st change) produced another wicket taking their #4 batsmen ..good catch by Vishal at point.

Brought in spinners (Ananth and Dilip ) from each end. Ananth got his wicket in his very 1st ball (good catch at gully by Sekhar). Their middle order batsmen showed some resistance, Sekhar & Dhanu bowled very tight line and length including an exceptional caught & bowled by Sekhar. Remaining batsmen just slogged..finally setting up a target of 198 for us to win.

Our chase was flawless. Excellent start by Dilip and Dhanu…gave us an 80 + runs (I think) opening partnership (highest opening partnership this season so far). Dilip was run-out (questionable) at 45. Actually he scored more than 50 …his 1st cover drive should have been a clean six over the covers, if the ball didn’t hit the poll at the boundary. Mr. Consistent opener Dhanu (41) was again un-lucky to have missed his-century 3 time this season. Both of them laid out a great platform which was much required for this chase.

Then comes Naga…what can I say about his batting…clean shots..on-drives, cover-drive boundaries,… he played all around the park. His and Sid’s partnership after the opening pair set up everything for us. Sekhar did well in supporting Naga getting the game closer to winning…leaving me just 2 runs for the victory and I finished it with a boundary. We chased 198 very convincingly and I am very happy to see such an excellent batting display. Our batting is improving with every game..

Keep it going Eagles !!!! I have to say that our fielding was a little sloppy and we have to improve on it. We dropped at least 5 catches today…else we would have packed them up for under 120. Our batsmen really did their job and performed very well making sure that our loose fielding did not cost us the game.    Overall, Yet another great team-work and an excellent batting display. I am sure there will be more such innings to follow. I think we would be #2 in the points-table though we and #1 (HRCC) have the same points.  


Cheers !!! Go Eagles !!! 

Match Report: Eagles vs NJ Barons, 06/10/12 @ Far Hills

by Murali

Intone Eagles Won. NJ Barons CC: 154/10 in 36 oversIntone Eagles CC: 155/6 in 37 overs Great team effort once again.

Looking at yesterdays & previous performances of NJ Barons, they seem to be a very strong team and beating them convincingly definitely is a milestone for us. I am proud of our team’s performance. Let’s keep it going !!!  NJ Barons CC won the toss and chose to bat. I and Lahiru opened the bowling, started off well getting their opener in the 4th ball of my 1st over. Courtesy of Lahiru, took an excellent catch at mid-off ( J ). All the bowlers bowled a very tight line and length troubling their top order batsmen and sending them back in single digit scores.

Shakti was on fire with the ball, an amazing in-dipping Yorker took the middle stump of one of their best batsman who has been scoring 50s in almost every game he played so far. Shakti’s spell was unplayable. I am sure he’ll be devastating if he was given the new ball. Chinmay and Dhanu bowled well as always. Nagarjun was excellent behind the wickets. It would not be fair, if I do not mention about their #4 batsman (Pranav). Full credit to him for playing an excellent innings (62 - Not out) under pressure, He helped their team to put up a fighting total of 154.

He showed lot of resistance and patience in spite of wickets falling at the other end. His shots neat mostly scoring behind cover, point and gully areas. If it were not him, we would have packed them up for less than 80 runs. He gave only one chance when their total was in 120s. But a total of 154 in a league game must be expected. I guess this is their lowest score this season. They scored 200 plus in almost all of their previous games.

Requiring on 4 runs an over, our batting was spot on in the chase. Lucky and Dhanu opened the innings.  Dhanu started off well with nice cover drives…scoring boundary, singles and doubles ..but was unfortunate to get our off a very sharp catch in the slips (we would normally see such a catch only in internal games). Ananth as usual was impressive with his selective cover drive boundaries, they tried to trouble him with short and raising balls going off of his shoulders and a couple over his head. He played them with ease, hooking them for boundary and also huge sixes over mid-wicket which almost fell on the roof structure at our ground by the parking area.

Chinmay just picked up his form from where he left off last game. He thoroughly entertained us with his batting…very convincing sixes and fours. Lucky did well supporting both Ananth and Chimnay in putting up much needed partnerships. I always knew Vishal had potential to bat up the order, but was waiting for the right time to try him in the top. He was promoted to #5, played very sensibly rotating the strike and giving Chinmay most of the strike who was taking on their bowlers.

Vishal and Nagarjun got us close to victory leaving Dilip and I around 30 runs in 9 overs to win. Their bowling was strong and main strike pace bowlers were back on the attack. Dilp & I played cautiously making sure we don’t lose a wicket at that stage scoring singles and doubles. Dilip was very patient and finished the innings for us with the winning boundary.


Our strategy of saving good batsman like Dilip and Nagarjun for the middle order worked well.  Chasing is never easy and we won the game convincingly. Overall, a great team effort and a good win against an impressive & a strong bowling attack.

With this victory, we made it to the top of the points-table in our division. Let’s try and occupy the top seat for the remainder of the season.  Special thanks to Prabhakar for coming over to the ground and supporting the team. I think the Chicken-wings & ice coffee during the lunch break did the trick for our batting  J . Thank you Naga.  

Kudos to the team  !!   Go Eagles. !!!  Murali.

Score Card

Match # 5973
NJ Barons Cricket Club v/s Intone Eagles Cricket Club
Far Hills
06/10/2012(40-over match)
Result	IntoneEagles Won NJ Barons Cricket Club:154/10 in 36.0 Intone Eagles Cricket Club:155/6 in 37.0
Comments
Toss	NJ Barons Cricket Club
Umpires	BurgiRamlackhan
Man of the Match	1.
	2.
NJ Barons Cricket Club Innings  (40 overs maximum)       R B 4 6 Balakrishna Sara (C) Caught   Murali Vijjapurapu 0 0 0 0 Hariprasad Reddy Caught   Chinmay Bhat 11 0 0 0 Apoorv Rajput Caught   Chinmay Bhat 12 0 0 0 Pranav Reddy Gangam Not Out     62 0 6 2 Srikanth Mantha Caught   Shakthi Vijay 8 0 1 0 Praneeth Reddy Muthukuru Bowled   Shakthi Vijay 12 0 2 0 Nikhil Reddy Podduturi Bowled   Shakthi Vijay 0 0 0 0 Venkat R Goli (VC) Caught   Chinmay Bhat 8 0 0 0 Varun Chabbra LBW   Dhanushka Haputhanthri 14 0 2 0 Ashish Chaudhary Caught   Dhanushka Haputhanthri 0 0 0 0 Charan Jasti Caught   Dhanushka Haputhanthri 1 0 0 0
Extras	(b 0, lb 0, w 0, nb 0)
Totals	(10 wickets in 36.0 overs) 154
FOW
Bowling O B M R W Murali Vijjapurapu 6 0 1 16 1 Lahiru Rathnayake 3 0 0 11 0 Chinmay Bhat 5 0 3 24 3 Mayank Jain 4 0 1 17 0 Shakthi Vijay 8 0 2 23 3 Dilip Kovuri 2 0 0 16 0 Dhanushka Haputhanthri 7 0 0 21 3
Intone Eagles Cricket ClubInnings  (target : 155 runs from 40.0 overs)       R B 4 6 Niladhar Rao Stumped   Srikanth Mantha 17 0 1 0 Dhanushka Haputhanthri Caught   Venkat R Goli (VC) 9 0 0 0 Ananthkrishnan Gopalakrishnan Caught   Varun Chabbra 34 0 4 1 Chinmay Bhat Bowled   Venkat R Goli (VC) 28 0 0 3 Vishal Vikram Caught   Varun Chabbra 8 0 1 0 Nagarjun Aleti Caught   Venkat R Goli (VC) 10 0 0 0 Dilip Kovuri Not Out     18 0 1 0 Murali Vijjapurapu Not Out     6 0 0 0 Lahiru Rathnayake Did not bat     0 0 0 0 Mayank Jain Did not bat     0 0 0 0 Shakthi Vijay Did not bat     0 0 0 0
Extras	(b 0, lb 0, w 0, nb 0)
Totals	(6 wickets in 37.0 overs) 155
FOW
Bowling O B M R W Venkat R Goli (VC) 7 0 0 18 3 Pranav Reddy Gangam 7 0 0 26 0 Ashish Chaudhary 6 0 0 21 0 Apoorv Rajput 8 0 0 30 0 Varun Chabbra 8 0 0 14 2 Srikanth Mantha 3 0 0 34 1