Week 2 of The CouchExpert T20 Championship was marred with incessant rains on Saturday forcing the games to be pushed to a later date. On Sunday, GE and Boltz posted wins while IDM Cricketers won one of their two games on the day.
Match 4: UNISYS versus BOLTZ
21st July 2013 (7:30 am – 10:30 am)
UNISYS won the toss and elected to bowl
Having lost their first game last week, Unisys opted to bowl first on winning the toss on a slightly damp outfield – result of incessant rains throughout the week.
Boltz opened with Sachin and Aseem and looked confident against a steady Unisys new ball attack. Sachin was his free flowing self though Aseem seemed to be struggling to force the pace initially and it was not a surprise when a strike-deprived Aseem was snared up by Harish in the 5th over of the match.
The powerplay yielded only 31 runs, but the heavy outfield did indicate that the scores would be on the lower side throughout the day. Captain Sandeep joined Sachin and the pair seemed to have got used to the pace of the wicket as they found gaps with regularity. The pace picked up as the pair added a further 36 runs in the next 5 overs when Sachin fell.
The heavy outfield ensured that the new batsman had to grind his way to quick runs with running between the wickets and Jyoti and Sandeep tried to up the ante with 8 wickets still in hand. A combination of Karthik and Mallikarjun denied Boltz any easy runs as the run rate was brought down to 6 after 14 overs. The pressure told on Boltz as the captain Sandeep was run out looking for those extra runs.
Things changed for the better for Boltz as Vikas walked in and showed tremendous ability to clear the long boundaries with his powerful hitting. Hitting through the field was a difficult proposition with the heavy outfield, But Vikas’s 14-ball unbeaten 30 with three huge sixes to mid-wicket in the last two overs pushed the total to 140 and set-up a challenging chase for Unisys.
Vikas followed-up his tremendous finish with the bat with a fiery opening burst with the wall and accounted for Unisys’s opener Vivek for a duck in the fourth over. Bharath, on the other end played a good hand and found support from Sharath first and Sanjeev next only for both promising partnerships to be broken just as they threatened to cut loose.
With 71 needed off the last 8 overs and 8 wickets in hand with a well set Bharath at the crease, Unisys seemed very much in the hunt before losing 3 wickets in the next 2 overs that set their chase back badly.
Unisys found it hard to recover for those set-backs particularly, and not withstanding the late fireworks from Sandeep and Mallikarjun they were always going to be short of the total and lost the game by 11 runs eventually.
Brief scores: BOLTZ 140/3 in 20 overs (Sandeep 41 (35b, 3X4), Sachin 33 (42b, 3X4), Vikas 30 not out (14b, 1X4, 3X6), Harish 1/23) beat UNISYS 129/8 in 20 overs (Bharath 35 (39b, 4X4), Vikas 3/17, Aseem 2/22) by 11 runs.
Full match report along with individual reports can be downloaded from here
Performer of the Match: Vikas – MVP points 23.73 (Batting: 8.14 Bowling 14.59 Fielding 1)
Post-match presentationMatch 5: GE versus Unisys
21st July 2013 (11 am – 2 pm)
GE won the toss and elected to bat first
GE won the toss and elected to bat for the second time in a roe in this tournament. Soon, their free flowing and attacking opening pair of Shimjith and Rajnikanth found it hard to tackle the tall IDM Cricketers new ball bowler Sathish. Sathish managed to extract considerable lift off the wicket and had them GE openers hobbling. Sathish had Shimjith caught behind in the first over with another delivery that bounced from a length.
Things turned bad for GE when its captain Abhishek perished in the second over. It brought Arvind who managed a half-century in the previous game to the middle. The pair of Rajnikanth and Arvind seemed determined to see off the very impressive Sathish and cut out loose strokes and managed to stitch a few overs together playing smart cricket.
Just as Rajnikanth seemed to be getting the hang of things, he played on to another short ball from Sathish leaving GE 3-down before the end of the powerplay overs.
It required the calm head of Dheeraj and Arvind to put the innings back on track. They relied on singles and hard running between the wickets to tick the scoreboard along. The left-arm spin of Sudhanshu along with the other slow bowlers – Nitin and Asheesh – kept GE in check throughout the batting innings as they struggled to build momentum into their innings. It was again left to Arvind to pull them out of the hole and he did that with tremendous planning and execution.
He ground out the difficult early overs and rotated the strike admirably to build a platform and opened up towards the end of the innings with some innovative strokeplay as he manufactured 35 runs in the last 3 overs to push GE’s total to 127 which was a fighting score nonetheless.
IDM Cricketers seemed to be in a hurry in the chase as Sudhanshu seemed to be following up his good bowling performance with a rapid start to the innings as he went after Abhishek. Nitin provided good company as the openers plundered runs in excess of 8 an over in the first three overs. With 27 up on the board just after 4 overs, the game was slipping away from GE’s grasp very quickly.
Then Dheeraj bowled the over that changed the game on its head and irrevocably so. Dheeraj knocked over the aggressive Sudhanshu with his first delivery. He sent back the other opener Nitin and captain Kapil off the fifth and sixth ball of the over to have IDM Cricketers tottering at 28/3.
Dheeraj came back to clean-up Swayam in his next over to knock the wind out of IDM Cricketers’ sails. Dheeraj’s spell had changed the fortunes of GE dramatically in 20 minutes and had IDM Cricketers reeling. Bhaskar took over the mantle from Dheeraj and delivered the knock-out punch with four wickets of his own as IDM Cricketers were bowled out in under 12 overs for a paltry 60.
“We bowled well and then we collapsed with the bat after a decent start,” said IDM Cricketers’s captain Kapil at the end of the game. On the other hand, Abhishek said, “We knew we had the bowling to defend a smallish target. Am happy that the bowlers responded well.”
Brief scores: GE 127/7 in 20 overs (Arvind 50 not out (50b, 4X4, 1X6), Mayank 22 (33b), Sathish 2/23) beat IDM Cricketers 60 all out in 12.5 overs (Nitin 16 (18b, 2X4), Bhaskar 4/8, Dheeraj 4/23) by 67 runs
Full match report along with individual reports can be downloaded from here
Performer of the Match: Dheeraj – MVP points 24.93 (Batting: 2.5 Bowling: 22.43)
Post-match presentation
Match 6: EMC versus IDM Cricketers 21st July 2013 (2:30pm – 5:30 pm)
EMC won the toss and elected to field
IDM Cricketers were playing back-to-back games. And having seen them struggle against GE’s bowling, EMC’s captain Sreekrishna was quick to pounce on the low confidence of the IDM Cricketers’s batsmen and inserted them in.
IDM Cricketers made a change and sent Swayam to bat at the top along with Sudhanshu. The move paid off well as both Sudhanshu and Swayam got stuck into some very loosw bowling by EMC. Only EMC’s new ball bowler Robin managed to have any control over the batsmen as all others struggled for consistency in lines and lengths in the powerplay.
Sudhanshu seemed particularly in murderous mood as he stroked 8 boundaries in his 25-ball knock of 43. Swayam, on the other end, played a measured innings giving as much of the strike possible to Sudhanshu and opened up once Sudhanshu was dismissed.
The introduction of vice-captain Jeethendra paid dividends as he accounted for Sudhanshu and then Kapil and Asheesh in quick succession. Any intentions of a a EMC fight-back was thwarted by Swayam who paced his innings masterfully with fluent strokes on the leg-side in particular. He batted through the innings giving the much needed anchor it missed in the last game and branched out in the end to remain unbeaten on 73 while pushing his team’s total to 180.
Chasing 9 an over against a tough opposition was always going to test the depth and caliber of any batting side and EMC were now facing the issues IDM Cricketers found themselves facing in the last game. Their inability to string any substantial partnerships ensured that there was no constant pressure on the IDM Cricketers’s bowling.
Only Fredrick, Jeethendra and captain Sreekrishna got into double figures but none went past the teens as EMC wilted under the pressure of chasing a monumental target eventually folding up for 88 in the 19th over. For EMC Cricketers, they had their second straight game with the ball with all their bowlers having a good time of it with the ball.
“We were unable to execute out plans well,” rued a disappointed Sreekrishna summing up his team’s dismal performance.
Brief scores: IDM Cricketers 150/5 in 20 overs (Swayam 73 not out (55b, 11X4, 1X6), Sudhanshu 43 (25b, 8X4), Jeethendra 3/31) beat EMC 88 all out in 18.5 overs (Chirag 13 (21b), Asheesh 2/3, Sudhanshu 4/11) by 92 runs
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