The CouchExpert

Match 7: IDM Cricketers versus Unisys

27^th July 2013 (7:30 am – 10:30 am)

Unisys won the toss and elected to bat

Unisys seemed to have brushed off the blues of their last two games as they seemed positive as they came out to bat against IDM Cricketers. The openers seemed to be in a hurry and the first five overs yielded 54 runs as IDM Cricketers found it difficult to stem the flow of runs.

As is the wont with Unisys batsmen through the series, none of their batsmen were able to convert their starts into big runs as IDM Cricketers clawed their way back into the game through Ajit who ran through the Unisys middle order to finish with 4 for 13 in his 4 overs.

“I just stuck to line and length and Sudhanshu was a great help at the other end,” said Ajit at the end of the game. Unisys’s captain Harish was also of a similar opinion, “We got of to a great start putting up 50-plus in the first 5 overs but did not capitalize on the start and ended with 138 at the end.”

IDM Cricketers’s captain Kapil seemed pleased with the fightback. “We were poor in the power play overs giving away runs at 11 an over almost. But we came back really well through Sudhanshu and Ajit to restrict them to 138.”

IDM Cricketers started in a similar vein to Unisys as their openers found form for second straight game in a row. Sudhanshu was at his punishing best again as he tore into Unisys bowling while Swayam played the anchor at the other end. Sudhanshu’s 28 consisted of 5 boundaries and Swayam stayed solid as they raced at 9 an over for 10 overs.

Swayam held fort even as he lost Sudhanshu and Melvin in a short span of time. He stayed unbeaten for second straight game in a row as he brought up his second straight half-century for the tournament. He remained unbeaten on 63 as IDM Cricketers brought up the win in the 18th over.

Brief scores: Unisys 138/5 in 20 overs (Bharath 31, Harish 18, Ajit 4/13) lost to IDM Cricketers 189/5 in 17.4 overs (Swayam 63 not out, Sudhanshu 28) by 5 wickets

Full scorecard is unavailable  for this game.

Performer of the Match: Ajit – MVP points 21.68

Post-match presentation:

Match 8: Wowzers versus ACT

28^th July 2013 (7:30 am – 10:30 am)

ACT won the toss and elected to bat first

It was a day where just about everything (barring a freak accident to Thomas who stepped on a ball hurt his ankle) went right for ACT. All their batsmen found form and managed to get quick runs. All their bowlers were spot on. When they hit the ball in the air, often the fielders overran the ball or simply dropped them.

Vinay and Sharath opened the batting and looked to be positive from the onset. Vinay was the aggressive of the two and also the chancier of the two. Often looking to go over the top, he quickly spread the field around with some clean hitting. He maneuvered the field brilliantly often by stepping out and hitting over the top and then waiting for the short ball and then putting them away. He pushed the mid-on wide with his flicks and then would charge down the wicket to hit over straight-mid on. He seemed to be two steps ahead of the bowler and fielding captain all the while. He was also lucky as he did give more than a chance to the long-on fielder only for him to badly misjudge the first one and then drop the next one.

Sharath on the other hand was keen to put Vinay back on strike as often as possible in the powerplay overs. He played pleasing drives and cuts himself but seemed content to anchor the innings. He would often take the odd calculated risk, but seemed to be working to a plan as runs flew in a torrent as the openers put on over 100 in the first 10 overs. Vinay finally ran out of lives in the 12^th over when he holed out. But he had produced an outstanding innings to give his team a massive start.

Bharath joined Sharath, who by now was well set to take over the mantle of quick scoring from Vinay. Sharath and Bharath produced outstanding flicks to the legside in contrasting styles – Sharath all along the ground and Bharath often managing one-bounce hits to the fence. Sharath fell 2 short of his half-century, but Bharath was keen to push his team to a total closer to 200. 60 were added in the last 5 overs between Bharath and Deepak as ACT fell 11 short of 200.

Chasing 190 was going to be difficult against a good all-round bowling side like ACT and Wowzers understood the magnitude of that difficulty when Laxman was hit on the helmet grill by Benjamin in the second over. The batsman was run out as he wandered off the crease after being hit. ACT withdrew the appeal and let Laxman play. Both Bhavesh and Benjamin troubled the Wowzers’ openers and kept them honest with their pace and bounce. Bhavesh accounted for Laxman with a full swinging delivery.

Captain Ravi walked in and seemed to be in good nick as he started finding the boundaries from the start. His back-cut off the bowling of Benjamin being the highlight.  With Suresh seemingly getting into the innings and looking solid at the other end, the prospect of an entertaining chase loomed.

It all changed when Benjamin was replaced by Shitender. Bowling quickish leg-breaks and often darting straight quicker balls, he troubled the batsmen. He produced a hat-trick in the 8^th over of the innings that killed the chase. His second ball of the over was a quick full toss down the legside which Ravi top-edged to give Paddy a swirling catch at short fine-leg. He had Suresh playing back to a quick ball that trapped him in front as the batsman went to hit it across the line and got hit on the back leg. He produced another quicker ball that hit the next batsman right in front of the middle-stump to bring up his hat-trick – and also the first at this ground.

Nani and Prithvi played out some pretty strokes in another attractive mini-partnership of 31 for the 5^th wicket before Ajay broke through with two wickets in two balls. Shitender came back to pick 2 more wickets with the last two balls of his spell to finish with 5 for 13 for the game that set up a massive 100-run win for ACT.

Brief scores: ACT 189/2 in 20 overs (Vinay P 57 (45b, 9X4), Sharath 48 (35b, 7X4), Bharath not out 46 (30b, 6X4), Lakshman 1/28) beat Wowzers 89 all out in 15.1 overs (Ravi 20 (17b, 3X4), Shithu 5/13, Ajay 3/21) by 100 runs

Full scorecard of the match can be found here

Full match report along with individual reports can be downloaded from here

Performer of the Match: Shitender – MVP points 31.68 (Bowling: 29.68 Fielding 2.0)

Post-match presentation:

Match 9: NSN versus THBS

28^th July 2013 (11:30 am – 2:30 pm)

THBS won the toss and elected to field

In a game that was under constant threat from the rains, THBS opted to bowl first perhaps thinking it best to chase in case the game was shortened because of the rain as historically it tends to favour the teams chasing under the Duckworth/Lewis method.

THBS captain Arun managed to get good nip off the surface and troubled both the NSN openers in his first over. But soon Avinash got the hang of the THBS bowlers and started to get inside the line and tuck the ball fine for boundaries. His partner Prakhar was solid at the other end and often pushed Avinash into taking the extra run everytime the ball went to the outfield. The openers opened up more as the first change bowlers Vaibhav and Dheeraj took a while to get their lines right.

NSN seemed to be on the way to a massive total when they reached 74 for 1 at the end of 10 overs with Avinash well set for a big score. His dismissal soon after slowed the runs down and THBS clawed their way back into the match with some tight bowling. Stand-in captain for the day Satya walked in and ensured that there was no more damage whilst accumulating runs with dabs and flicks to the outfield. He held an end up as Deb and Anil perished at the other end in the quest for quick runs as THBS bowlers found their radar. Even with Manish looking threatening to take the game away with his clean strikes, THBS bowled brilliantly to not concede more than a single boundary in the last 5 overs of the innings.

Chasing 134, THBS started off aggressively with Lalith in particular looking to take the attack to the bowlers. Manish for NSN had a mixed-bad bowling some very neat out swingers interspersed with boundary balls and Lalith cashed in. Lal provided the vital breakthrough for NSN when he sent back Lalith in the 5^th over. Vishal’s fun out soon after powerplay meant the game was in the balance at 35 for 2.

Chandan and Shreyas played steadily to build a base for the final onslaught as they cut out risks and looked to rotate the strike. With 80 needed off the last 10 overs with 8 wickets in hand, they seemed to have played themselves into a good position to launch an attack. A very impressive Rakesh and an equally impressive Satya standing up to his medium pace soon accounted for both of them to push THBS back. Soon, it followed a similar pattern to NSN’s batting innings that struggled in the 2^nd half of its batting innings with boundaries hard to come by.

There were a few needless overthrows, but by and large, Satya and his team had a firm grip on the game by now and they eventually squeezed THBS batsmen of any momentum by drying out any boundaries at all. By the end the target was 16 too many for THBS.

Brief scores: NSN 133/6 in 20 overs (Avinash 44 (42b, 6X4), Satya 29 (30b), Shreyas 1/22) beat THBS 117/7 in 20 overs (Lalith 21 (15b, 4X4), Shreyas 21 (27b, 1X4), Rakesh 3/14, Deb 2/11) by 16 runs

Full scorecard of the match can be found here

Full match report along with individual reports can be downloaded from here

Performer of the Match: Rakesh – MVP points 16.65 (Batting: 0 Fielding: 0 Bowling: 16.65)

Post-match presentation:

Match 10: Boltz versus EMC

28^th July 2013 (2:30 pm – 5:30 pm)

Boltz won the toss and elected to bat

Boltz were coming off a good win last week while EMC were coming off a bad loss. Boltz won the toss and elected to bat.

EMC started off slightly better than they did with the ball last week as Ramesh gave them some stability with his medium-pace. Robin, on the other hand had an erratic day with the ball as Boltz’s openers Sachin and Aseem helped themselves to easy boundaries on both sides of the wicket. Sachin, other than the one ball that nipped back and hit him in the midriff seemed at ease punishing the EMC bowling. He perished slicing a drive to Fredrick at long off.

Captain Sandeep walked in and seemed edgy for the first few balls, but soon found his touch to be his fluent self again. Aseem on the other hand seemed to be enjoying himself as he repeatedly walked inside the line of the ball and punishing the ball to many legside boundaries. He was instrumental in keeping the runrate up and around 9 throughout his stay and looked good for many more than the 57 he made when he was runout.

Vikas had a lucky break to be dropped early at long on and he made the most of it by plundering runs all round the wicket as EMC bowling wilted under his onslaught. The fielders seemed to be distracted with the right-left combination at the crease and the bowlers’ lines also suffered as a result. Vikas’s whirlwind 49 propelled Boltz to a massive 192 at the end of 20 overs.

Chasing a massive target, EMC’s captain Sreekrishna pushed himself up the order and seemed determined to go after Boltz’s bowling. Aniket and Vikas provided a steady start to Boltz without looking particularly threatening.  Fredrick was the first to go in the 5^th over of the innings. But a very wayward Abishek struggled to get his line right and bowled and over with many wides. Sreekrishna, in the interim had played pleasing strokes to push the fielders back and looked set for a pretty good score when he top-edged a delivery from Abishek. The bowler dropped the straight-forward catch but ran Sreekrishna out as both batsmen found themselves in the middle of the pitch expecting the bowler to take the catch.

Boltz’s bowlers struggled for control as they conceded wides with constant regularity (a total of 30 wides in just over 17 overs), but the pressure of a huge chase ensured they kept chipping away at the wickets. Jeethu and Kushal had the wits about them to make the most of a very wayward Boltz attack as they strung together 41 runs for the 6th wicket in just a little over 4 overs. EMC’s innings folded up soon after as the lost the last 5 wickets for 8 runs to be bowled out for 133 in the 18^th over.

Brief scores: Boltz 192/5 in 20 overs (Aseem 56 (45b, 7X4, Harish 49 (25b, 6X4, 1X6), Chirag  1/21) beat EMC 133 all out in 17.4 overs (Kushal 23 (18 b, 3X4), Sreekrishna 22 (20b, 3X4), Vikas 2/13) by 59 runs

Full scorecard of the match can be found here

Full match report along with individual reports can be downloaded from here

Performer of the Match: Vikas – MVP points 17.96 (Batting: 10.45 Bowling: 7.51)

Post-match presentation:

Points Table

Upcoming Games:

3^rd August

• 7:30 am – GE versus BOLTZ
• 11 am – EMC versus Unisys

4^th August

• 7:30 am – THBS versus CECC
• 11 am – Wowzers versus NSN