The CouchExpert Staff
The CouchExpert Staff
The CouchExpert Staff
19th May, 2013
Match: WIPRO versus ODW
Venue: CECG, Bangalore
Toss: WIPRO won the toss and elected to field.
Teams:
ODW
Top of the table coming into the last Sunday of the game took on bottom of the table. Wipro only needed to win the game to ensure that the title was theirs. ODW on the other hand needed a good game to end the campaign on a high.
Wipro won the toss and chose to field. They were coming off a semi-finals loss in another tournament earlier in the day and seemed determined and very keen not to slip this one through their grasp. With the game reduced to 17-overs a side, they opened with twin leg-spin attack of Bharath and Karthik.
Swayam’s forgettable tournament with the bat ended with a 5-ball duck. Arvind’s intent seemed aggressive against the spinners, but the runs came in a trifle. The spinners had spun a web around the ODW batsmen and all they seemed to manage to do was find fielders or thin air repeatedly.
Arvind and Jyoti soon perished, but Melvin found an able ally in Srikant. They found momentum as wrist spinners gave way to finger spin of Sri Karthik and medium pace of Vikas Gowda and Aameer. A sluggish start was then overcome with a stroke-filled partnership that managed 55 runs in 33 balls to push the score beyond 100 that seemed unlikely only half an hour ago.
A target of 119 wasn’t much, but it was a tremendous comeback riding on the back of another 50 by Melvin. Wipro though, largely bowled and fielded well in restricting ODW to 118.
ODW’s debutant left-arm seamer Tejomay raised hopes by trapping Karthik in front with a full swinging delivery in just the second over. Mohit walked in at the fall of the first wicket and then set about flogging ODW’s bowling.
An aggressive right-hander who likes to sit on his back-foot, Mohit produced a series of delightful strokes all around the wicket. He managed to quickly get on to the back-foot pulling any short deliveries and with tremendous power. Equally impressive was his balance in waiting for the balls drifting on to his legs that he glanced with great touch repeatedly to the fine-leg boundary.
Ajay provided a steady hand at the other end ans Mohit went about dismantling the ODW attack. Everything that Swayam threw at Mohit didn’t seem remotely enough as he brought up his 50 in the blink of an eye.
Victory was inevitable and quickly so as it came in just 9 overs to bring great joy to the Wipro camp. While it was dejection and ruing of many narrow misses for ODW throughout their campaign, Wipro on the other hand produced their game where most chipped in some game or the other.
Their captain Sharath was relieved at the end. He said, “we are coming from a bitter loss in the semis this morning. This victory is a revenge of sorts after a poor show in the morning. The team has been brilliant in this tournament with bowlers sticking to their gameplan and fielders supporting them well. And batsmen have chipped in in all games. It has been a total team effort.”
Scoring patterns for the two teams:
Full Scorecard
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st Inning Batting: One Day Wonders, ODW R B 4's 6's SR Swayam c Sri Karthik b B D 0 5 0 0 0.0 Arvind st A Patil b B D 9 12 2 0 75.0 Melvin b Sharath 58 45 8 0 128.89 Jyoti c Madhukar b Sri Karthik 6 18 1 0 33.33 S P c Mohit b V K S 28 17 4 0 164.71 Kokon not out 1 2 0 0 50.0 Prakash not out 3 4 0 0 75.0 Extras(w 11, b 1, lb 1) 13 Total (5 wickets; 17.0 overs) 118 6.94 RPO Did Not Bat: Srikant, Tejomay, Vinodh, Sombit, Rudra, Aseesh Fall of Wicket: 0-1 ( Swayam 0.5 ov ), 17-2 ( Arvind 4.3 ov ), 68-3 ( Jyoti 11.2 ov ), 112-4 ( Melvin 15.5 ov ), 112-5 ( S P 16.1 ov ) 1st Inning Bowling: WIPRO, Wipro O M R W EC AV EX B D 4.0 0 14 2 3.50 7.00 K B R 3.0 0 20 0 6.67 - (w 1) Sri karthik 4.0 0 25 1 6.25 25.00 V Gowda 1.0 0 10 0 10.00 - (w 1) Aamir 1.0 0 13 0 13.00 - Sharath 2.0 0 20 1 10.00 20.00 (w 2) V K S 2.0 0 14 1 7.00 14.00 (w 2) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2nd Inning Batting: WIPRO, Wipro R B 4's 6's SR K B R b Tejomay 1 3 0 0 33.33 Ajay not out 20 20 2 0 100.0 Mohit not out 68 32 11 1 212.5 Extras(w 28, nb 1, lb 1) 30 Total (1 wicket; 9.0 overs) 119 13.22 RPO Did Not Bat: Harsja, Prithvi, Drexank, Aamir, Sharath, Sri Karthok, V K S, B D, V Gowda, Madhukar, A Patil, Srikanth Fall of Wicket: 11-1 ( K B R 1.2 ov ) 2nd Inning Bowling: One Day Wonders, ODW O M R W EC AV EX Swayam 2.0 0 25 0 12.50 - (w 8) Tejomay 2.0 0 14 1 7.00 14.00 (w 2) Vinodh 1.0 0 16 0 16.00 - (w 1) Jyoti 1.0 0 9 0 9.00 - Rudra 2.0 0 41 0 20.50 - (w 3, nb 1) S P 1.0 0 12 0 12.00 - (w 3) Melvin 0.0 0 1 0 - - (w 1) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post match ceremony
Full match report with individual performance details
The full game along with graphs and wagon wheel details can be got here.
Performer of the Match: Mohit.
Match Result: Mohit defeated ODW by 9 wickets
Points: WIPRO (2) ODW (0)
The CouchExpert Staff
19th May, 2013
Match: AMD versus ACT
Venue: CECG, Bangalore
Toss: AMD won the toss and elected to field.
Teams:
Consistency had been the bane for both these fine teams as they locked horns in the mid-day game of the last Sunday. Having witnessed MCC struggle batting first, Prashanth opted to field first after winning the toss.
Ajay and Vinay, opening for ACT hardly had any discomfort as Chethan bowled a poor first over with innumerable extras as 16 came off the first over. Ajay with a back foot punch to the cover boundary had already played the stroke of the day and with Vinay looking threatening as he has all though the tournament, trouble beckoned for AMD.
ACT found the boundaries easily as 57 came off the first 6 overs. An assortment of bowlers – slow and fast – were tried to no avail. Finally Prashanth turned to Anil and he had Ajay bowled off his first ball.
Vinay, though, went on his merry way at the other end tearing into AMD’s bowling. Much to AMD’s relief ACT were unable to keep up with Vinay at the other end as their bowlers managed to keep a check on one end. Deepak, Shankar, Thomas and Sharath all got out in an attempt to up the rate as Anil and Arun kept them in check.
Vinay, now well past his 50 was in punishing mood and Paddy provided the finishing touches as AMD powered to 135 in their allotted 18 overs. For AMD, it was a case of pulling things back after a poor start during the powerplay.
Viswajeet and Piyush started off brightly for AMD as the two short openers played handsome strokes against Paddy and Kalappa. The pair were particularly severe square on the off-side playing some very delightful square drives.
Sharath quickly turned to spin as more than 45 came off the first six overs and Thomas struck immediately having Viswajeet caught.
Vikast joined Piyush and the pair kept at the required rate with positive batting. And at half-way the game was evenly poised. The introduction of Rohit changed the equation quite dramatically. The wiry off-spinner has been a delightful performer tossing his off-breaks and inviting the batsmen to go after him. He puts enough revolutions on the ball to achieve a drop on the batsmen making them mishit often.
Here too he had AMD groping after his flighted off-breaks. His cunning is in deceit with dip more than turn and it accounted for several AMD batsmen who looked to swipe at his loopy off-breaks. He accounted for the dangerous Vijas and then the captain off successive deliveries. And he came back to completely break the back of AMD in his next over as he scalped the big hitting Kiran and Amit. In a span of 10 deliveries he had sewn up the match for his team.
In the end, it proved too difficult for AMD to recover from the blows of Rohit and they eventually folded up 15 runs short.
Scoring patterns for the two teams:
Full Scorecard
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st Inning Batting: A C T, A C T R B 4's 6's SR Vinay not out 71 51 7 1 139.22 A N b Anil 21 21 2 0 100.0 Deepak c Arun b Arun 3 9 0 0 33.33 Shankar c Arun b Arun 7 6 0 0 116.67 Thomas b C M 6 10 0 0 60.0 Sharath b C M 5 7 0 0 71.43 Paddy not out 9 4 1 0 225.0 Extras(w 12, b 1) 13 Total (5 wickets; 18.0 overs) 135 7.50 RPO Did Not Bat: Kalappa, Rohit, Benjamin, Shithu Fall of Wicket: 57-1 ( A N 7.1 ov ), 77-2 ( Deepak 10.4 ov ), 96-3 ( Shankar 12.6 ov ), 113-4 ( Thomas 15.4 ov ), 125-5 ( Sharath 17.1 ov ) 1st Inning Bowling: A M D, A M D O M R W EC AV EX Chethan 4.0 0 24 0 6.00 - (w 1) Kiran 1.0 0 13 0 13.00 - Ravi 2.0 0 19 0 9.50 - Anil 4.0 0 26 1 6.50 26.00 (w 6) Arun 4.0 0 25 2 6.25 12.50 (w 3) C M 3.0 0 27 2 9.00 13.50 (w 2) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2nd Inning Batting: A M D, A M D R B 4's 6's SR Viswajeet c Sharath b Thomas 22 28 4 0 78.57 Piyush run out (Rohit) 36 33 3 0 109.09 Vikas st Vinay b Rohit 15 18 2 0 83.33 Prashanth lbw b Rohit 0 1 0 0 0.0 Kiran lbw b Rohit 8 8 1 0 100.0 Amit c Benjamin b Rohit 2 4 0 0 50.0 Arun not out 11 10 1 0 110.0 Ravi st Vinay b Shithu 1 2 0 0 50.0 Anil not out 8 4 1 0 200.0 Extras(w 10, b 5) 15 Total (7 wickets; 18.0 overs) 118 6.56 RPO Did Not Bat: Chethan, C M Fall of Wicket: 48-1 ( Viswajeet 6.5 ov ), 79-2 ( Vikas 12.1 ov ), 79-3 ( Prashanth 12.2 ov ), 92-4 ( Kiran 14.1 ov ), 94-5 ( Amit 14.5 ov ), 97-6 ( Piyush 15.2 ov ), 99-7 ( Ravi 15.6 ov ) 2nd Inning Bowling: A C T, A C T O M R W EC AV EX Paddy 3.0 1 25 0 8.33 - Kalappa 3.0 0 15 0 5.00 - (w 5) Thomas 2.0 0 14 1 7.00 14.00 (w 1) Shankar 3.0 0 15 0 5.00 - (w 2) Rohit 4.0 0 20 4 5.00 5.00 Shithu 2.0 0 13 1 6.50 13.00 (w 1) Benjamin 1.0 0 11 0 11.00 - (w 1) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post match ceremony
Full match report with individual performance details
You can download the pdf from here.
Performer of the Match: Vinay.
Match Result: ACT defeated AMD by 15 runs
Points: ACT (2) AMD (0)
The CouchExpert Staff
19th May, 2013
Match: MCC versus CITI
Venue: CECG, Bangalore
Toss: MCC won the toss and elected to bat.
Teams:
Overnight rains had given way to a pleasant morning. The outfield had dried considerably to show no traces of rain though the outfield did slow down.
Both teams looked charged up for the game. Both had vested interests. MCC needed to win by 79 or more runs to give themselves a shot at the trophy on net run rate and CITI had to defeat MCC by a similarly huge margin and then hope Wipro would lose by a similarly large margin to give them the title.
There was intent in both camps. MCC’s openers Bhargav and Guna seemed to be on the edge and looked to run at everything that eventually cost them the wicket of Bharath in the very first over when Guna called him for a non existent run.
Guna and Chetan looked desperate to find the boundaries but Kranthi was up to the task by bowling himself and Srikanth for 7 overs straight. The strain of not being able to break away from CITI’s stranglehold showed on MCC as Guna and then Chethan soon fell.
It was evident by now that the wicket was slow and it would take considerable effort and patience to build a score here. Brothers Prasad and Shankar showed the way by being patient against a very determined and disciplined CITI attack.
The first boundary of the innings came in the 14th over when Shankar found the fence. He found the fence once more in the over and managed another three to eventually break away from the vice-like grip CITI had on them. The pair put on 60 in 8 overs before Prasad fell trying to up the rate.
Venu joined Shankar, who had by now found his feet and timing on this sluggish surface. Rehamathullah and Naresh failed to provide the control nor the penetration provided earlier by Srikanth, Kranthi and Niket and Shankar and Venu capitalized with quick runs in the end. A total of 118 in the end seemed a rand recovery from the precarious position of 41/3 at the end of 10 overs.
A very determined MCC came out to the field in defending 118. An equally charged up CITI set out to get the runs as quickly as they could. A good contest ensued with Varun looking to go after the bowling and MCC looking to peg the CITI openers on the back foot.
The new ball pair of Chethan and Guna complemented each other well as Chethan troubled the right-handers with outswingers from one end and Guna tucking them with inswingers from the other. Niket fell to a low catch in the second slip chasing a swinging ball from Guna.
A charged-up Guna sent back captain Kranthi in the same over as MCC used up the windy conditions to their great advantage. Chethan extracted appreciable movement and bounce off the wicket and even hit Vinayak on the head with a vicious bouncer.
Varun held fort as CITI kept losing wickets at the other end in regular intervals, but when he was run out in the 12th over, the onus of getting CITI across the line became their finisher Srikanth’s responsibility. With MCC’s death bowling being their strongest point, it set up a good contest.
Manish and Srikanth handed much of everything that Vijay and Venu threw at them keeping up with the run rate and threatening to chase down the target. Like in the first innings, the innings gained momentum once a few boundaries were hit.
Srikanth found the fence an even cleared it as he rapidly ate away at the target. The fall of Manish in the 18th over slowed things down for CITI as Shakeel failed to put Srikanth back on strike. The loss in momentum hurt CITI badly as Guna and Venu bowled tight overs to bowl MCC to a win.
With the win, MCC moved to the top of the table and will need Wipro to lose their final game later in the day to give them the trophy.
Scoring patterns for the two teams:
Full Scorecard
1st Inning Batting: Mmavericks Cricket Club, MCC R B 4's 6's SR Bhargav run out (Niket) 1 2 0 0 50.0 Guna c Rehamathullah b Kranthi 2 11 0 0 18.18 Chetan c Anurag b Niket 15 24 0 0 62.5 Shankar c Anurag b Rehamathullah 51 49 5 0 104.08 Prasad c Niket b Rehamathullah 16 23 1 0 69.57 Venu not out 12 12 1 0 100.0 Syed lbw b Rehamathullah 0 1 0 0 0.0 Extras(w 18, nb 2, lb 1) 21 Total (6 wickets; 20.0 overs) 118 5.90 RPO Did Not Bat: Shekar, Arun, Ankit, Yeshwanth, Vijay Fall of Wicket: 1-1 ( Bhargav 0.4 ov ), 17-2 ( Guna 3.6 ov ), 30-3 ( Chetan 8.1 ov ), 90-4 ( Prasad 16.2 ov ), 118-5 ( Shankar 19.5 ov ), 118-6 ( Syed 19.6 ov ) 1st Inning Bowling: CITI, Citi O M R W EC AV EX Srikanth 4.0 0 16 0 4.00 - (w 2, nb 1) Kranthi 4.0 0 19 1 4.75 19.00 (w 3) Naresh 4.0 0 27 0 6.75 - (w 5, nb 1) Niket 4.0 0 21 1 5.25 21.00 (w 2) Rehamathullah 4.0 0 34 3 8.50 11.33 (w 3) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2nd Inning Batting: CITI, Citi R B 4's 6's SR Varun run out (Shankar) 27 30 3 0 90.0 Niket c Shankar b Guna 0 1 0 0 0.0 Kranthi c Syed b Guna 0 5 0 0 0.0 Vinayak c Syed b Chetan 2 8 0 0 25.0 Naveen c Yeshwanth b Venu 7 12 1 0 58.33 Rehamathullah c Chetan b Vijay 1 7 0 0 14.29 Manish b Venu 20 25 2 0 80.0 Srikanth b Venu 29 29 2 1 100.0 Shakeel not out 1 4 0 0 25.0 Extras(w 22, nb 1, b 1, lb 2) 26 Total (8 wickets; 20.0 overs) 113 5.65 RPO Did Not Bat: Anurag, Naresh Fall of Wicket: 9-1 ( Niket 1.1 ov ), 10-2 ( Kranthi 1.6 ov ), 18-3 ( Vinayak 4.1 ov ), 36-4 ( Naveen 7.4 ov ), 47-5 ( Rehamathullah 9.4 ov ), 54-6 ( Varun 11.5 ov ), 96-7 ( Manish 17.5 ov ), 113-8 ( Srikanth 19.6 ov ) 2nd Inning Bowling: Mmavericks Cricket Club, MCC O M R W EC AV EX Chetan 4.0 0 22 1 5.50 22.00 (w 4) Guna 4.0 0 18 2 4.50 9.00 (w 5) Venu 4.0 0 34 3 8.50 11.33 (w 1, nb 1) Arun 3.0 0 12 0 4.00 - (w 2) Vijay 4.0 0 16 1 4.00 16.00 (w 5) Prasad 1.0 0 8 0 8.00 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post match ceremony
Full match report with individual performance details
You can download the pdf from here.
Performer of the Match: Shankar.
Match Result: MCC defeated CITI by 5 runs.
Points: MCC (2) CITI (0)
The CouchExpert Staff
18th May, 2013
Match: CECC vs YAHOO!
Venue: CECG, Bangalore
Toss:Â CECC won the toss and elected to bat.
Team Photo (match day):
Standing (L to R): Goutham, Gokul, Ashish, Bhargav, Jobin, Muthu (WK/VC), Gautam R
Squatting (Lto R): Gaurav R, Dinesh, Kaustubh (C), Dinesh
CECC won the toss and elected to bat under very humid conditions. The new opening pair of Goutham and Muthu though hardly had to sweat much at all as Yahoo!’s new ball pair of Girish and Kavash, though managed prodigious swing, were too short to be effective. As a result, Goutham and Muthu feasted on cuts as they rattled along at 10 an over across the first 4 overs.
Disaster struck in the 5th over as another short ball from Girish darted into Muthu whose attempted pull found his gloves before smashing into his nose. He suffered a cut on his nose bridge and retired hurt so as to get it checked for severity of the injury.
Jobin joined Goutham and the 50 came up soon after in 5 overs. Goutham though missed a dipping full-toss from leg spinner Nachiketh to be bowled for 25. CECC’s in form batsmen Shoukath and Gautam R though didn’t have a good time with the bat as both were dismissed quite softly. Shoukath drove a half-volley to covers and Gautam lobbed a high full-toss to the square-leg fielder’s waiting hands.
Gokul, playing after 6 games, joined Jobin and the pair kept the scoring ticking quickly with aggressive running between-the-wickets with some wonderful drives, punches, pulls and leg-glances. The languid and fluent Gokul with his free and full arm movements is always a delight to the eye with his elegant manner of batting – high back-lift with a full free swing of the arms with the bat often finishing resting on his back. The economy of his late feet movement makes him a very attractive player to watch when his brings out his drives and leg-glances.
Jobin, on the other hand, seemed to be getting into his stride for the first time since feet corn cut short his very rich vein of form 2 months ago. Today, though, he seemed to be less stuck in the crease as he moved freely and decisively forward and backwards and found his timing and range on both sides of the wicket.
The pair kept the Yahoo! bowlers at bay by looking to go after the bowlers early in the over and managed to tick singles of the remaining deliveries to go at 7 or 8 every over in the middle overs as they set a tremendous launch pad to the big hitters in CECC for later.
Jobin perished for a satisfying 48 and soon Gokul perished for a stylish 38. Gaurav and Ashish brought out the big hits in the end to push the CECC total to a more than competitive 180 that would test Yahoo!.
Gaurav kept the Yahoo! openers pinned with his quick and accurate off-spin in a testing first spell. His around-the-stumps line meant that the batsmen had to be on the watch out for deliveries that were turning in to crash in to the stumps and the ones that went with the arm and skidded along with the angle towards the slips. He gave Nachiketh a particularly working over repeatedly beating him outside off. He was very unlucky not to pick up any wicket in his very impressive first spell.
Goutham kept the batsmen in check with his outswingers. He drew first blood when he had Girish caught at mid-on trying to slog at an outsinger. And when he ran out the captain Kavash in the 9th over Yahoo! were pushed back a long way as the new ball pair had restricted them to 45 for 2 in 9 overs pushing the required run-rate close to 9.
The follow-up to the initial burst was a slight mixed bag as Bhargav found it tough to hit a good line and length straightaway. He however followed it up with two tight overs back-to-back. Gautam R too found his stride only after bowling his first over. With the required runrate mounting all along, Pandian played a handsome innings controlling the middle order and also maneuvering the field with his powerful game.
CECC’s bowling and fielding wilted under the quality of his batsmanship even as he struggled to find support at the other end. Jobin and Dinesh chipped away at the other end as Kaustubh quite astutely worked to starve Pandian of strike. The strategy worked like a charm as wickets tumbled at the other end and the running-between-the-wickets also became wobbly.
As the overs shrank Pandian became more and more restless and his strokeplay became more and more power oriented. CECC’s bowling suffered and consistency in executing their plans eluded them across the length of a full over. The erring in lengths and line kept Yahoo! in hunt as Pandian brought-up his 50.
The tide turned eventually as Gautam executed his plan of bowling full to straight fields as Pandian missed a straight and full delivery to be trapped in front. With the danger man gone, Kaustubh brought in the field to make the lower-order batsmen take risks to score runs and the pressure told on the batsmen as they heaved strokes more in hope than in conviction. Chaotic running and stroke selection ensued and they were eventually bowled out 9 runs short with an over still left to play.
The grit of the team and its desperation to win came through the game as they backed the bowlers and fielders with a less-than-perfect fielding display, but with full marks for effort and commitment. The working in partnerships in executing plans seemed to be on the upward curve.
The grit and putting the team cause above self was best exemplified by Muthu. After suffering a cut on his nose and having the wound cleaned and the nose bridge put back into shape, he came back to keep the wickets (later operated and now in splints). He stood up to the stumps to the medium-pacers, marshalled fielding troops and kept the spirits of the entire team up with a bloodied nose. And yes, he swallowed the two chances that came his way too.
Brief Scores:
CECC 180/7 in 25 overs (Jobibn 48 (54b, 5X4), Gokul 38 (32b, 3X4), Goutham 25 (16b, 4X4)) defeated YAHOO! 171 all out in 24 overs (Pandian 63, Nachikanth 41, Dinesh 2/27, Jobin 2/28) by 9 runs
Performer of the Match (POTM):Jobin Varghese
Match Result: CECC beat YAHOO! by 9 runs