Thunders V/s Metro Tigers : Fall tournament League Match # 2

Calls were being made till late in the night. Kalyan was trying to get 11 players for this match and was thinking of somehow patching a team together which was depleted from pullbacks by regular line players and hoard of injuries to others. Finally a team was gathered (literally) and with untested bowling line up hopes were rested on the Batting to click and put up a score that could be made a match out of.......and delivered they did !!! Outstanding batting performance by the team and everyone was happy that finally after long, the batting lived up to the expectations. All the batsmen chipped in with useful runs but special gem was the partnership between ever reliable Sujai and blaster Kartik whose innings was high due. Though the runs were coming in nice and regular, the real momentum builder was an over played for 21 runs by Kartik by hitting hard big sixes and we all new the score would be crossing the 120 mark we had set in our mind to defend.

Sujai was as usual impeccable and played wonderful innings with mix of agression and collection of singles. The icing on the cake was once in a blue moon innings by Gaurav who did not let the advantage slip up and hit some good shots to take the final score to 135.

Confident from the score we put up, the bowlers took from there and made sure they utilized the big cushion provided to them. Revelation was Kamesh , who was playing his first match with the team and managed to scalp 4 wickets. The bowlers; though bowled the opponents out for a meagre 70 odd score, it could not have been possible without the dazzling fielding effort from the team. Led and motivated by live-wire Sujay on the ground effort (who had a stupendous run out also...a la Rhodes...), all others raised their level of effort to put up a great fielding effort, and to make sure nothing was given away other than what batsmen have to work hard for. Some wonderful catching was seen and bowlers bad line and length was covered well by the fielding unit.

Bowlers do have lot of work to do and have to learn to keep their line through the 4 overs that they get (in fact around 25 odd were extras from the 70 runs, the opponents scored). The idea to keep in mind for every bowler is that everytime the fielders and luck will not be on your side and one has to focus more on what is required of each bowler for every ball.

There is a lot to take from this but this time around I am going to give a slack and not write about it. For once let everyone relish the win, and only enjoy the positives out of that match .... the negatives shall be reminded of when we all meet next !!! :-))

One more win can take us directly to the Quarters and everyone has to make winning his habit !

Venue : Centerville , 11:30 am
Thunders : 135/7
Metro Tigers : 70/10
Highlights :
Batting : Sujay : 20+ , Kartik : 20+ , Gaurav : 20+ (Kalyan has scoresheet)
Bowling: Kamesh 4 wickets , Adi : 2 wickets , Sujay : 2 wickets