Friday, May 14, 2010
For a few dollars more
There was no rush of blood or ugly stares at the batsmen. There wasn't any dissent shown by the opponents in crucial moments too. It was the spectacular visit to the old times when emotions always ran subdued. The team we played last week were not the obnoxious bunch we witnessed last week. Yet there was an intense game played truly in spirit and in character. Winning the toss earlier, it was the wise decision to bat first as bowling would have meant disastrous with the cold winds. Said that, we still had to bat out of the skin to post any decent total. We had a nice start to the innings but that was all to be content with as Praveen immediately holed one to long on. Strike one for Adroit CC. From then on we just stood like a leaf on a windy day perishing one after the other. On the other hand, Paresh looked like he was playing on a different planet. There was one shot in particular when he picked a ball angled in to his pads and dispatched it neatly over the mid wicket fence. Slight reminiscence of Moin Khan when he played that shot. Finally when he got out bowled by a spinner, he looked like a soldier being run over by a bicycle back home in his village after bravely combating a barrage of bullets in the battle. The innings ended when we were finally bowled out for 71. It was not a giveaway total but a very modest one to that of an Indian middle class family's monthly income. Our bowling started off well plucking three wickets early not before two catches were spilled down. At the break they were 23 from 8 overs and required 48 from the remaining 8. It was even worse when it climbed above 6 as 40 were required from the remaining 5 overs. Their batsmen were completely responsible for their team's predicament as they were moving the clock like snails. A wicket at that stage came a blessing in disguise for them as the next man, Srikanth, hit some meaty blows and made everyone in our camp look perplexed reducing the equation to a simple 6 from the last over. When it was down to three, we made a fumble that led to a mere one run from two balls. Thamizh beat the batsman next ball and Paresh standing at short square plucked one nice catch off the last ball to tie the match. Post match there were shouts in both the camps for a few dollars more that went begging. It was a tragedy as explained by Aristotle, one that could purge the twin emotions of pity and terror. Pity they had to tie when they could have won it easily, terror we almost lost it before the tie.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
NJPCL Match 2 : Plainsboro Panthers Vs NJ STARS
This is one of the crucial match which was eagerly waited by not only both of us but also by the other teams. But unfortunately the match was not played.
NJ STARS gave walk over due to unavailability of players. We got the 10 points without playing the match.
Its more exciting for everybody not only to get 10 points but also for getting one morning off to have some more nice sleep.
NJ STARS gave walk over due to unavailability of players. We got the 10 points without playing the match.
Its more exciting for everybody not only to get 10 points but also for getting one morning off to have some more nice sleep.
NJSBCL Match 4 : Plainsboro Panthers Vs Adroit CC at Panthers Ground on 5/9
Thanks to NJ STARS, after a occasional unexpected one day off on Saturday, we were waiting to play the match against Adroit CC.
The climate was very awful; it was colder and windy and very contrary to last two weeks
Piyush was not available at the last moment and we had too look out for option and disturb other players who we gave off on that day. But fortunately we got Jeetu and it was bit embrassing for me to ask Jeetu or anybody to come and join the team immediately.Sometimes it is an issue if any of the player dont show up at the last minute or informing about the unavailability lately. But most worrysome part this kind of things are happening bit frequently this year. Due to such happenings whoever does give a word and not show up at the last minute not because of emergency, we are letting our team down.
I request our team players not to do such activity to let your team down.
Ok Lets come to the match.
Preparations:
Its our home ground match so we had to start preparing the ground. Thanks to all those guys who are giving hand defaultly to help ourselves during the preparations.I respect their dedication and commitment and want to extend my thanks to them wholeheartedly.
Toss:
Not again this time to lose the toss. Yes its too much surprise to myself and my team, i won the toss. We elected to bat without second thought as the climate was awful, back are the colder and windy days. Also because one of team member Jeetu was on the way.
Plainsboro Panthers Batting Innings:
I asked our regular opening pair Paresh and Praveen to start the innings unlike last week where Ram and Swamy opened the innings. We were targetting 100 atleast for this game as we thought the opponents were little weaker than our previous opponents.
Paresh started the innings well with 11 runs off Ranjith over who never bowled in the whole innings. It seems going well before Praveen got caught at long on, going for the short. He got out for 5 runs. From then on our batsman started practising Parade from Pavilion to Crease and back to Pavilion.
Paresh is the only player who single handedly took the batting innings for us. He scored 39 runs with couple of huge sixes and a four. We expected him to score 50 as he looked to be in a good nick that day. Other than that we no notable performance from any of our batsmen.Its a total batting mess that day.
We got all out for 71 in 14.2 overs. First time we scored less than 83 which was what our exact score for last three matches.
Adroit CC Batting Innings:
Adroit CC started their batting sensibly, not looking for big shots. They were slowly moving singles. First chance of Tanuj was missed in the gully by Jeetu which was bowled by Sathish. Next over i got the first break through by removing Parag Shah for 4 who hit the long off and caught well by Harieash.Very next ball was hit to sky by Tanuj and the chance by dropped by Varun.
Next Varun compensated this mistake by removing Tanuj with a good catch by Jeetu at point.
From there on played more sensibly but very slowly we continued to miss odd run out chances. At the break after 8 overs Adroit were 24/2. They needed 48 runs from 48 balls. We were were confident next three overs costed only 8 runs and they need 40 runs from 5 overs.
Next three overs costed 24 runs from me,Sathish and Arun and got one lucky run out after so many misses.They needed 16 runs from 2 overs same as last week match equation where we pulled the match comfortably.
The penultimate over from Sathish turned to be match turner. Srikanth hit a six over long on and that was a good hit nothing to be blamed off and they need 6 runs of final six balls.
I bowled the last over i tried to keep fuller or york length, first three balls conceded 3 runs. Next ball went for a double with fumble from Sekar costed us the extra run.
Adroit were very comfortable as the score were leveled and they need 1 run off 2 balls to take the match home. I changed my bowling to spin and coming around the stumps. the 5 ball was a dot ball. Now they need one run. Last ball i kept it too fuller and but it was on bit leg stump, the set batsman Ranjith, pushed the ball to short leg and i was shouting Paresh to throw the ball for run out without knowing that directly hit Paresh hands who took it on the second attempt.
Yes its unbelievable it was a catch and we tied the match without loosing it. Its fortunate that we tied inspite of poor display from us with batting and mediocre bowling. Excellent bowling from he was very economical.
I request everybody from our team to stand up to raise ourselves to avoid the mistakes and pust ourselves for a better performance.
Scoresheet :
Adroit CC Batting Innings:
Plainsboro Panthers Bowling Innings:
Match Summary:
The climate was very awful; it was colder and windy and very contrary to last two weeks
Piyush was not available at the last moment and we had too look out for option and disturb other players who we gave off on that day. But fortunately we got Jeetu and it was bit embrassing for me to ask Jeetu or anybody to come and join the team immediately.Sometimes it is an issue if any of the player dont show up at the last minute or informing about the unavailability lately. But most worrysome part this kind of things are happening bit frequently this year. Due to such happenings whoever does give a word and not show up at the last minute not because of emergency, we are letting our team down.
I request our team players not to do such activity to let your team down.
Ok Lets come to the match.
Preparations:
Its our home ground match so we had to start preparing the ground. Thanks to all those guys who are giving hand defaultly to help ourselves during the preparations.I respect their dedication and commitment and want to extend my thanks to them wholeheartedly.
Toss:
Not again this time to lose the toss. Yes its too much surprise to myself and my team, i won the toss. We elected to bat without second thought as the climate was awful, back are the colder and windy days. Also because one of team member Jeetu was on the way.
Plainsboro Panthers Batting Innings:
I asked our regular opening pair Paresh and Praveen to start the innings unlike last week where Ram and Swamy opened the innings. We were targetting 100 atleast for this game as we thought the opponents were little weaker than our previous opponents.
Paresh started the innings well with 11 runs off Ranjith over who never bowled in the whole innings. It seems going well before Praveen got caught at long on, going for the short. He got out for 5 runs. From then on our batsman started practising Parade from Pavilion to Crease and back to Pavilion.
Paresh is the only player who single handedly took the batting innings for us. He scored 39 runs with couple of huge sixes and a four. We expected him to score 50 as he looked to be in a good nick that day. Other than that we no notable performance from any of our batsmen.Its a total batting mess that day.
We got all out for 71 in 14.2 overs. First time we scored less than 83 which was what our exact score for last three matches.
Adroit CC Batting Innings:
Adroit CC started their batting sensibly, not looking for big shots. They were slowly moving singles. First chance of Tanuj was missed in the gully by Jeetu which was bowled by Sathish. Next over i got the first break through by removing Parag Shah for 4 who hit the long off and caught well by Harieash.Very next ball was hit to sky by Tanuj and the chance by dropped by Varun.
Next Varun compensated this mistake by removing Tanuj with a good catch by Jeetu at point.
From there on played more sensibly but very slowly we continued to miss odd run out chances. At the break after 8 overs Adroit were 24/2. They needed 48 runs from 48 balls. We were were confident next three overs costed only 8 runs and they need 40 runs from 5 overs.
Next three overs costed 24 runs from me,Sathish and Arun and got one lucky run out after so many misses.They needed 16 runs from 2 overs same as last week match equation where we pulled the match comfortably.
The penultimate over from Sathish turned to be match turner. Srikanth hit a six over long on and that was a good hit nothing to be blamed off and they need 6 runs of final six balls.
I bowled the last over i tried to keep fuller or york length, first three balls conceded 3 runs. Next ball went for a double with fumble from Sekar costed us the extra run.
Adroit were very comfortable as the score were leveled and they need 1 run off 2 balls to take the match home. I changed my bowling to spin and coming around the stumps. the 5 ball was a dot ball. Now they need one run. Last ball i kept it too fuller and but it was on bit leg stump, the set batsman Ranjith, pushed the ball to short leg and i was shouting Paresh to throw the ball for run out without knowing that directly hit Paresh hands who took it on the second attempt.
Yes its unbelievable it was a catch and we tied the match without loosing it. Its fortunate that we tied inspite of poor display from us with batting and mediocre bowling. Excellent bowling from he was very economical.
I request everybody from our team to stand up to raise ourselves to avoid the mistakes and pust ourselves for a better performance.
Scoresheet :
Plainsboro Panthers Batting Innings:
| S.No | Batsman Name | How Out | Runs | 4's | 6's |
| 1 | Paresh | Bowled | 39 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Praveen | Caught | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | Ram | Bowled | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | Sathish | Caught | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Arun | Caught | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 | Andrew | Caught | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | Jeetu | Run Out | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | Sekar | Run Out | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 9 | Thamizh | Bowled | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | Varun | Not Out | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | Harieash | Caught | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Adroit CC Bowling Innings:
| S.No | Bowlers Name | Overs | Maiden | Runs | Wickets |
| 1 | Ranjit | 1 | 0 | 11 | 0 |
| 2 | Gopal | 3.2 | 0 | 16 | 2 |
| 3 | Naren | 2 | 0 | 9 | 2 |
| 4 | Sai | 4 | 0 | 14 | 2 |
| 5 | Ravi | 4 | 0 | 21 | 2 |
Adroit CC Batting Innings:
| S.No | Batsman Name | How Out | Runs | 4's | 6's |
| 1 | Tanuj | Caught | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | Parag | Caught | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | Ranjith | Caught | 29 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | Ravi | Run Out | 20 | 1 | 0 |
| 5 | Srikanth | Not out | 11 | 0 | 1 |
Plainsboro Panthers Bowling Innings:
| S.No | Bowlers Name | Overs | Maiden | Runs | Wickets |
| 1 | Thamizh | 4 | 0 | 19 | 2 |
| 2 | Sathish | 4 | 0 | 26 | 0 |
| 3 | Varun | 4 | 0 | 12 | 1 |
| 4 | Arun | 4 | 0 | 14 | 0 |
Match Summary:
| Team | Score |
| Plainsboro Panthers | 71/10 in 14.2 Overs |
| Adroit CC | 71/4 in 16 overs |
| Result : The Match was tied in last ball with wicket | |
Monday, May 10, 2010
Run outs, Call outs and Other outs
Great show – Good to see Paresh scoring those sixes and playing responsibly until the end, in the match against Adroit CC, during last weekend. Sorry to see none of the other batsmen shouldering support here (including myself). Our bowlers did an amazing job. Thamizh/Paresh, hats off to you guys for the last ball wicket and keeping your cool under pressure.
Run outs - Are we becoming team Pakistan, aping them on getting run out ? In the four SBCL matches so far, we have 10 run outs including mine. They are free gifted wickets to our opponents. What it means is that, we are not communicating and ignoring the basics. What the basics say ? It is always the call of the person running to the risky end, to judge the run. For eg. if the batsman cuts the ball to the gully position, the batsman initiates the call, but then the non-striker should decide whether to run or not, as he is running to the risky end. If he is not comfortable, he should shout “no”, immediately. Similarly, if the ball goes to mid on/off, it is the batsman's call and the non-striker should wait for the batsman, to start running. Please start saying yes or no, for every run. Click this hyperlink where, Ricky Ponting gives tips on improving running between the wickets. The fielders are not Johnty Rhodes, but at the same time we should not be Inzamamul Haqs. Some good players are getting run outs and it is hurting our targets and that in turn puts more pressure on our bowlers/fielders. Another tip is here.
Call outs – Another communication glitch, is not making calls when you try to take high catches. I know our team is good in fielding/catching. But rectifying this minor glitch, will help us a lot.
Other outs – I am going to take a pledge on behalf of Praveen, that he is not going to play aerial shots in the leg side until he is confident of his form. He is too good a batsman to get out to these aerial shots. As Paresh is in good form, if Praveen can rotate the strike by finding the gaps and play along the ground, that will help him regain the form pretty soon. Hope to see Praveen score a 40/50 pretty soon, like Paresh did, this Sunday. I know it is just a case of putting mind over matter. Think every ground as Geo Davison Park. You should get your form, pretty soon.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
NJSBCL : Match 3 : Maha CC Vs Plainsboro Panthers
Sunday (May 2),the match is against Maha CC the last year semi finalist. I kewn its going to be one of the most important for us. We want to keep the momentum going. Its away match for us. So we have started by 7:30 AM from plainsboro to their ground.The match is scheduled to start at 8:30 AM
By the time we reach the ground they were practising
Toss:
For the third time in this season, i lost the toss. But the opponents decided to bowl first and asked us to Bat first. Thats great we want to Bat first anyways as Andrew was on the way at that time.
Before we start our innings, the opponent captain, Aseem called me along with the umpires from Jersey Jaquars and asked me to check the pitch and boundary distances. I said its fine.
Plainsboro Panthers Innings:
Since our regular openers are not in a mood to open that day, I asked Swamy and Ram to open the innings. The first over was so nervous because we had 3 runouts chances. Thanks to our opponent Keeper Keshant, our both openers were safe.When things are going well Swamy got out in the same fashion. I dont know how many more times he is going to get out that way. He needs get himself realized before it matters a lot for us. Next i sent Sathish in to rotate the strike. Ram and Sathish played really well.But unfortunately Sathish got runout which we thought its a not out and in the break explained how he got out.
Next I sent in Paresh, we hope him to fire with given runrate in which we were proceeding the innings. but he got out for 5 runs. Meanwhile Ram was silently boosting our runrate by rotating the strike and hitting odd boundaries. Next Andrew went and asked to go for it as we had enought wickets. Ram was scoring in a good pace before Aseem bowled a full toss he tries to clear in field and caught superbly by shortish mid - on fielder.Praveen went in and looks to hit the ball clean but was getting mishits. He also got run out for 5 runs. Sriram went in tried to hit the ball and got out for fullish delivery from Aseem for 2 runs.
Sekar went in and played sensibly opposing to his style of hitting the ball.Andrew mishit one ball in the covers and dropped by some poor fielder.Then he made use of luck given and hit two awesome sixers at long on before got run out for 19 runs in 16 balls. Piyush went in got run out for 1 run. We were 75/8 in 14.3 overs that time. We sent Varun and asked him to rotate the strike and not to get out. This time sekar got runout for 8 runs when running for the call from Varun. We were 79/9 in 15.3 overs when i went in.
Varun told me he will take a single and give me strike. I asked him to play his shot and i will run. We converted the singles to doubles for next two deliveries and the last ball Varun got into pads and couldnt run for that.I was again not out without playing a single ball.
We scored 83/9 in 16 overs. All the three matches till now in NJSBCL we played first and scored 83 runs. Yes exactly 83 in all the three games. One more thing to point out here we had some 5 run outs in this game which is one of the worst running for us.Hope to call properly and run sensibly in coming matches.
Maha CC Innings:
Hemal Patel & Pranav started the innings for Maha CC. I told Sathish that we need to take Hemal's wicket as early as possible, as he is one of the good batsman in their team. I bowled the first and gave three without getting any wicket. Sathish started the second over and tried to catch the ball which is hit by Hemal but it was not reachable. In the third ball Hemal hit the ball towards which came to very low and dived full infront and took one of the superb catch.Yes we took the Hemal's wicket we planned for.From there on they started to loose wickets at regular intervals. they scored 34/4 after eight overs.They need 50 runs in eight overs.Varun bowled some excellent deliveries and took two wickets. I asked Piyush to bowl the tenth over where the dangerous hitter Aseem captain of Maha CC hit a six of piyush over. Then i decided to bowl the 11th over. First the season i am bowling to left hand batsman started getting wide balls. The one good ball which happened to be short ball was thrashed to six over the school building and the ball was lost. Then i changed my bowling to spin from around the wicket. The batsman was very cunning trying to disturb my concentration by taking more time before each. Everybody in my team was frustrated of his behavior. I gave 14 runs in that over. I felt really bad that i bring down my team with that over. They were in very comfortable position that time as they need only 23 runs from 5 overs.
I asked Sathish to bowl the next over. It was the first ball, Aseem was over confident and was trying to hit Sathish to six but as said over confidence will make you fall he got out with a superb delivery from Sathish which hit the middle stump. The batsman cant believe himself. We were enjoying and expressing ourselves angirily.
The next over bowled by Varun, he controlled the runrate by giving only 2 runs. Next over i bowled and took one wicket of full toss and gave 3 runs in that over.
We controlled the run rate in past 3 overs very well. AS a result they were in need of 16 runs in 2 overs. There was much confusion whom to give bowling either Sathish or Piyush. And we decided to go with Sathish. He bowled excellently, took one wicket and gave 4 runs in that over.
So in the final they needed 12 runs. I gave the ball to Piyush and told him to keep it fuller. The first ball was full toss and the opponents were shouting no ball from the pavilion and the next ball the same. Leg umpire shouted "this is not a no-ball and if anybody shouts one more time, i will give out". Then the opponents stopped shouting. Ball by ball tension keeps rising but we hope we had a definite chance. they need 7 runs in last two balls. The batsman hit the ball to Sekar he fumbled a bit and throwed the ball accurately to Andrew, and he took of bails before the batsman reaches the crease.
HOOOOOO!!!! We won the match. Big Celebrations all round. We knew it was big win for us. I should appreciate the fielding our team which was 200% opposite to the match we played the day before. Excellent fielding by everybody and especially by Praveen who throwed the ball every quickly and cut the runs to ones which were supposed to be twos.
Good Show guys!! I wish everybody to give the best effort here on to keep up the good work.
We were getting few appreciation mails and few stomach burning messages around. Lets not get it to head or toe.
Scoresheet :
Maha CC Batting Innings:
Plainsboro Panthers Bowling Innings:
Match Summary
By the time we reach the ground they were practising
Toss:
For the third time in this season, i lost the toss. But the opponents decided to bowl first and asked us to Bat first. Thats great we want to Bat first anyways as Andrew was on the way at that time.
Before we start our innings, the opponent captain, Aseem called me along with the umpires from Jersey Jaquars and asked me to check the pitch and boundary distances. I said its fine.
Plainsboro Panthers Innings:
Since our regular openers are not in a mood to open that day, I asked Swamy and Ram to open the innings. The first over was so nervous because we had 3 runouts chances. Thanks to our opponent Keeper Keshant, our both openers were safe.When things are going well Swamy got out in the same fashion. I dont know how many more times he is going to get out that way. He needs get himself realized before it matters a lot for us. Next i sent Sathish in to rotate the strike. Ram and Sathish played really well.But unfortunately Sathish got runout which we thought its a not out and in the break explained how he got out.
Next I sent in Paresh, we hope him to fire with given runrate in which we were proceeding the innings. but he got out for 5 runs. Meanwhile Ram was silently boosting our runrate by rotating the strike and hitting odd boundaries. Next Andrew went and asked to go for it as we had enought wickets. Ram was scoring in a good pace before Aseem bowled a full toss he tries to clear in field and caught superbly by shortish mid - on fielder.Praveen went in and looks to hit the ball clean but was getting mishits. He also got run out for 5 runs. Sriram went in tried to hit the ball and got out for fullish delivery from Aseem for 2 runs.
Sekar went in and played sensibly opposing to his style of hitting the ball.Andrew mishit one ball in the covers and dropped by some poor fielder.Then he made use of luck given and hit two awesome sixers at long on before got run out for 19 runs in 16 balls. Piyush went in got run out for 1 run. We were 75/8 in 14.3 overs that time. We sent Varun and asked him to rotate the strike and not to get out. This time sekar got runout for 8 runs when running for the call from Varun. We were 79/9 in 15.3 overs when i went in.
Varun told me he will take a single and give me strike. I asked him to play his shot and i will run. We converted the singles to doubles for next two deliveries and the last ball Varun got into pads and couldnt run for that.I was again not out without playing a single ball.
We scored 83/9 in 16 overs. All the three matches till now in NJSBCL we played first and scored 83 runs. Yes exactly 83 in all the three games. One more thing to point out here we had some 5 run outs in this game which is one of the worst running for us.Hope to call properly and run sensibly in coming matches.
Maha CC Innings:
Hemal Patel & Pranav started the innings for Maha CC. I told Sathish that we need to take Hemal's wicket as early as possible, as he is one of the good batsman in their team. I bowled the first and gave three without getting any wicket. Sathish started the second over and tried to catch the ball which is hit by Hemal but it was not reachable. In the third ball Hemal hit the ball towards which came to very low and dived full infront and took one of the superb catch.Yes we took the Hemal's wicket we planned for.From there on they started to loose wickets at regular intervals. they scored 34/4 after eight overs.They need 50 runs in eight overs.Varun bowled some excellent deliveries and took two wickets. I asked Piyush to bowl the tenth over where the dangerous hitter Aseem captain of Maha CC hit a six of piyush over. Then i decided to bowl the 11th over. First the season i am bowling to left hand batsman started getting wide balls. The one good ball which happened to be short ball was thrashed to six over the school building and the ball was lost. Then i changed my bowling to spin from around the wicket. The batsman was very cunning trying to disturb my concentration by taking more time before each. Everybody in my team was frustrated of his behavior. I gave 14 runs in that over. I felt really bad that i bring down my team with that over. They were in very comfortable position that time as they need only 23 runs from 5 overs.
I asked Sathish to bowl the next over. It was the first ball, Aseem was over confident and was trying to hit Sathish to six but as said over confidence will make you fall he got out with a superb delivery from Sathish which hit the middle stump. The batsman cant believe himself. We were enjoying and expressing ourselves angirily.
The next over bowled by Varun, he controlled the runrate by giving only 2 runs. Next over i bowled and took one wicket of full toss and gave 3 runs in that over.
We controlled the run rate in past 3 overs very well. AS a result they were in need of 16 runs in 2 overs. There was much confusion whom to give bowling either Sathish or Piyush. And we decided to go with Sathish. He bowled excellently, took one wicket and gave 4 runs in that over.
So in the final they needed 12 runs. I gave the ball to Piyush and told him to keep it fuller. The first ball was full toss and the opponents were shouting no ball from the pavilion and the next ball the same. Leg umpire shouted "this is not a no-ball and if anybody shouts one more time, i will give out". Then the opponents stopped shouting. Ball by ball tension keeps rising but we hope we had a definite chance. they need 7 runs in last two balls. The batsman hit the ball to Sekar he fumbled a bit and throwed the ball accurately to Andrew, and he took of bails before the batsman reaches the crease.
HOOOOOO!!!! We won the match. Big Celebrations all round. We knew it was big win for us. I should appreciate the fielding our team which was 200% opposite to the match we played the day before. Excellent fielding by everybody and especially by Praveen who throwed the ball every quickly and cut the runs to ones which were supposed to be twos.
Good Show guys!! I wish everybody to give the best effort here on to keep up the good work.
We were getting few appreciation mails and few stomach burning messages around. Lets not get it to head or toe.
Scoresheet :
Plainsboro Panthers Batting Innings:
| S.No | Batsman Name | How Out | Runs | 4's | 6's |
| 1 | Swamy | Caught | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | Ram | Caught | 16 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | Sathish | Run Out | 11 | 1 | 0 |
| 4 | Paresh | Caught | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Andrew | Run out | 19 | 0 | 2 |
| 6 | Praveen | Run Out | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | Sriram | Bowled | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | Sekar | Run Out | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 9 | Piyush | Run Out | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | Varun | Not Out | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | Thamizh | Not Out | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Maha CC Bowling :
| S.No | Bowlers Name | Overs | Maiden | Runs | Wickets |
| 1 | Sanjay | 4 | 0 | 13 | 1 |
| 2 | Rohit | 3 | 0 | 18 | 1 |
| 3 | Umair | 2 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| 4 | Keshant | 3 | 0 | 21 | 0 |
| 5 | Aseem | 4 | 0 | 24 | 2 |
Maha CC Batting Innings:
| S.No | Batsman Name | How Out | Runs | 4's | 6's |
| 1 | Hemal | Caught | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | Pranav | Caught | 12 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | Dharmesh | Caught | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | Vishal | Caught | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Amin | Caught | 7 | 1 | 0 |
| 6 | Rohit | Run Out | 17 | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | Aseem | Bowled | 18 | 0 | 2 |
| 8 | Sandeep | Caught | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 9 | Umair | Bowled | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | Keshant | Not out | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | Sanjay | Run Out | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Plainsboro Panthers Bowling Innings:
| S.No | Bowlers Name | Overs | Maiden | Runs | Wickets |
| 1 | Thamizh | 4 | 0 | 25 | 2 |
| 2 | Sathish | 4 | 0 | 16 | 3 |
| 3 | Varun | 4 | 0 | 12 | 2 |
| 4 | Piyush | 4 | 0 | 25 | 1 |
Match Summary
| Team | Score |
| Plainsboro Panthers | 83/9 in 16 Overs |
| Maha CC | 78/10 in 15.5 overs |
| Result : Plainsboro Panthers Won by 5 runs | |
NJPCL : Match 1 : Plainsboro Panthers Vs REBELS XI
Saturday (May 1) the NJPCL Red Hard Tennis ball tournament started with our match against
Rebels XI. The Rebel XI team is new to NJPCL but few guys are known to us personally.
Preparations:
The match was scheduled to start 8 AM as few of the Rebels XI team members are playing in Cricket Ball league. We went to the ground before 8 AM. since it is home game for Rebels XI we took a break from preparing the ground. The match was delayed 45 mins because the groundsman is cutting the grass with mower vehicle.
The pitch is newly laid one fresh for the match and we know its going to be on the slower side. The pitch is not so proper it needs more ground work to get it prepared fully.Its very uneven at the bolwing end. It was very hot and humid on that day.
Toss:
We had the toss around 8:20. The neutral umpire Mr. Ashok Diwaker was not there at the ground that time. So we decided to toss ourselves between me and Azhar(Rebels XI Captain).Azhar tossed the coin in the air, I called it "Heads" but it turned out to be "Tails". Rebel XI decided to bat but we have to wait for the groundsman to finish his work on the inner circle. This our first match of the season where we were chasing.
Rebels XI Batting Innings:
Thyagu and Venkat opened the innings for Rebels XI. They both dropped the anchors and played really. Hardly we have got any chance in the first six overs. The ball is really doing nothing on the dead pitch.Even the batsmen felt the effect of dead pitch.
Varun bowled an excellently in the middle. He dropped the first chance in 6th over. I tried Harieash for bolwing first over he bolwed good but second over costed us more 11 runs came from that over. So I tried Arindam as we dont have the regular fourth bowler on that day.
Arindam gave the first break through for us in the 9th over.After that Varun started materializing the change in the pitch and two wickets.They started hitting Arindam as they have enough wickets in Hand. We dropped three catches in Arindam's Spell.
Then me and Sathish finished the proceedings they were finally 88/9. The last run out was not given by the umpire.Our fielding was very bad that day. We dropped some easy chances and gave them more runs by fumbling at the fielding.It was one of the day we want to forget about our fielding.
Umpire was very pathetic. He hadnt given any easy calls. There were lots fo wides given which were not actually wide and they were no balls which were not given are actually no-balls.On the whole, I as one of the executive board of directors, advised not to use the umpire any more for the tournament.
Plainsboro Panthers Batting Innings:
As usual our regular openers Praveen and Paresh, out there in the middle. They both gave us
very good start that we were 38/0 in 4 overs with huge six from Paresh. Praveen got out for
4 runs unfortunately with the ball slightly brushing the end of the bails above the leg stump. Swamy went in as started running singles and got out with his usual style like Sehwag for 6 runs.
Since we lost 2 quick wickets, i asked Arindam to go next to drop the anchor. He did drop anchor but the scores didnt move and he got out in the point for 1 run. Then asked Sekar to go and move the score but to hang in there. He came back with same speed at which he swings the bat. Our top middle order collapsed totally. I sent in Andrew asked him to stay and move singles. And scores are moving only with the extras that opponents bowled.
Now its Paresh turn to get out. I sent in Sathish he played sensibly before he got out for 3 runs. Then i sent in Varun.Andrew and Varun played sensibily so that our target came down to 23 in 8 overs. Varun got over anxious to hit the ball and bring the match home and missed the ball which got him out by hitting the stumps. Varun got out for 7 runs. We need 16 runs in 6 overs with 3 wickets in hand. Though it seems a easy target we were loosing the wickets cheaply. I was very tensed and there comes our savior Harieash who played excellently without any fear. He got unforunately when we need 1 run to win. Then Srinivas went in there to finish the proceedings but the opponents bowled a wide and made us win before any more hiccups.
Finally we won but we had lot of mistakes that day. But our next day match performance made
us look differently about which i will post it soon.
Scoresheet :
The Legends Batting Innings:
Rebels XI Bowling Innings:
Match Summary
Rebels XI. The Rebel XI team is new to NJPCL but few guys are known to us personally.
Preparations:
The match was scheduled to start 8 AM as few of the Rebels XI team members are playing in Cricket Ball league. We went to the ground before 8 AM. since it is home game for Rebels XI we took a break from preparing the ground. The match was delayed 45 mins because the groundsman is cutting the grass with mower vehicle.
The pitch is newly laid one fresh for the match and we know its going to be on the slower side. The pitch is not so proper it needs more ground work to get it prepared fully.Its very uneven at the bolwing end. It was very hot and humid on that day.
Toss:
We had the toss around 8:20. The neutral umpire Mr. Ashok Diwaker was not there at the ground that time. So we decided to toss ourselves between me and Azhar(Rebels XI Captain).Azhar tossed the coin in the air, I called it "Heads" but it turned out to be "Tails". Rebel XI decided to bat but we have to wait for the groundsman to finish his work on the inner circle. This our first match of the season where we were chasing.
Rebels XI Batting Innings:
Thyagu and Venkat opened the innings for Rebels XI. They both dropped the anchors and played really. Hardly we have got any chance in the first six overs. The ball is really doing nothing on the dead pitch.Even the batsmen felt the effect of dead pitch.
Varun bowled an excellently in the middle. He dropped the first chance in 6th over. I tried Harieash for bolwing first over he bolwed good but second over costed us more 11 runs came from that over. So I tried Arindam as we dont have the regular fourth bowler on that day.
Arindam gave the first break through for us in the 9th over.After that Varun started materializing the change in the pitch and two wickets.They started hitting Arindam as they have enough wickets in Hand. We dropped three catches in Arindam's Spell.
Then me and Sathish finished the proceedings they were finally 88/9. The last run out was not given by the umpire.Our fielding was very bad that day. We dropped some easy chances and gave them more runs by fumbling at the fielding.It was one of the day we want to forget about our fielding.
Umpire was very pathetic. He hadnt given any easy calls. There were lots fo wides given which were not actually wide and they were no balls which were not given are actually no-balls.On the whole, I as one of the executive board of directors, advised not to use the umpire any more for the tournament.
Plainsboro Panthers Batting Innings:
As usual our regular openers Praveen and Paresh, out there in the middle. They both gave us
very good start that we were 38/0 in 4 overs with huge six from Paresh. Praveen got out for
4 runs unfortunately with the ball slightly brushing the end of the bails above the leg stump. Swamy went in as started running singles and got out with his usual style like Sehwag for 6 runs.
Since we lost 2 quick wickets, i asked Arindam to go next to drop the anchor. He did drop anchor but the scores didnt move and he got out in the point for 1 run. Then asked Sekar to go and move the score but to hang in there. He came back with same speed at which he swings the bat. Our top middle order collapsed totally. I sent in Andrew asked him to stay and move singles. And scores are moving only with the extras that opponents bowled.
Now its Paresh turn to get out. I sent in Sathish he played sensibly before he got out for 3 runs. Then i sent in Varun.Andrew and Varun played sensibily so that our target came down to 23 in 8 overs. Varun got over anxious to hit the ball and bring the match home and missed the ball which got him out by hitting the stumps. Varun got out for 7 runs. We need 16 runs in 6 overs with 3 wickets in hand. Though it seems a easy target we were loosing the wickets cheaply. I was very tensed and there comes our savior Harieash who played excellently without any fear. He got unforunately when we need 1 run to win. Then Srinivas went in there to finish the proceedings but the opponents bowled a wide and made us win before any more hiccups.
Finally we won but we had lot of mistakes that day. But our next day match performance made
us look differently about which i will post it soon.
Scoresheet :
Rebels XI Batting Innings:
| S.No | Batsman Name | How Out | Runs | 4's | 6's |
| 1 | Thyagu C | Caught | 21 | 3 | 0 |
| 2 | Venkat K | Caught | 28 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | Prabhu R | Bowled | 6 | 1 | 0 |
| 4 | Afreen A | Bowled | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Praveen | Caught | 11 | 0 | 1 |
| 6 | Azhar | Bowled | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | Sai M | Bowled | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | Rajasekar V | Caught | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 9 | Prasaath S | Not Out | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | Vatsal P | Bowled | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | Susheel K | Not Out | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Plainsboro Panthers Bowling :
| S.No | Bowlers Name | Overs | Maiden | Runs | Wickets |
| 1 | Thamizh | 5 | 0 | 17 | 2 |
| 2 | Sathish | 5 | 1 | 9 | 2 |
| 3 | Varun | 5 | 0 | 19 | 2 |
| 4 | Harieash | 2 | 0 | 14 | 0 |
| 5 | Arindam | 3 | 0 | 29 | 3 |
The Legends Batting Innings:
| S.No | Batsman Name | How Out | Runs | 4's | 6's |
| 1 | Paresh | Bowled | 20 | 0 | 1 |
| 2 | Praveen | Bowled | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | Swamy | Caught | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | Arindam | Caught | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Sekar | Caught | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 | Andrew | Not Out | 16 | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | Sathish | Caught | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | Varun | Bowled | 7 | 1 | 0 |
| 9 | Harieash | Bowled | 10 | 1 | 0 |
| 10 | Srinivas | Not out | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | Thamizh | Did Not Bat | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Rebels XI Bowling Innings:
| S.No | Bowlers Name | Overs | Maiden | Runs | Wickets |
| 1 | Azhar | 5 | 0 | 21 | 1 |
| 2 | Sai | 5 | 0 | 26 | 3 |
| 3 | Afreen | 4 | 0 | 16 | 1 |
| 4 | Susheel | 5 | 0 | 26 | 3 |
Match Summary
| Team | Score |
| REBELS XI | 88/9 in 20 Overs |
| Plainsboro Panthers | 89/8 in 18.5 overs |
| Result : Plainsboro Panthers Won by 2 Wickets with 7 Balls remaining | |
Brain vs Brawn, VVV
Good to see that our team is performing so good so far. Kudos to all the members of the team.
Brain Vs Brawn - In our last 3 wins in the NJSBCL, noticed one curious thing. Most of us are impatient and can't wait to hit sixes and fours i.e. use our Brawn. As we learnt in the last season, Green ball do not travel that far. Should start using our Brain more and rotate the strike, if the ball is not in the slot to hit. The fielders are not from IPL and are bound to make mistakes, if we push them hard. All we need is good communication between the batsmen. Bad balls will come automatically, which can be thrashed for boundaries. But while waiting for bad balls, do not get bogged down and play dot balls. Rotating the strike is key here. Just my 2 cents. To prove my point, adding an article written by S Rajesh in Cricinfo on who is the leading international player, who plays less dot balls, etc and how it is helping their team.
VVV - Vastu Varun's Voodoo - Found out during our match against Maha CC, Varun doing some voodoo magic. In the middle of his spell, he placed his cigarette lighter below the off-side wide cone. After that, all the balls he bowled almost went so close to that cone, that the batsman started struggling to score and finally ended up loosing the match. Even one of his loose ball, which the batsman tried to hoick over deep mid-wicket, took the edge and went to the off-side cover fielder for a catch. Can we assume that whatever he placed under the cone, had some magnetic (voodoo) power to pull the ball towards it ??? Will Varun replace Vastu Venkatesan as the Uber Captain of Chennai Super Kings, next year. Only time will tell.
Btw, I am a CSK fan internally, but I was hedging myself by saying that they will loose. If they win, I have nothing to loose. Btw, we won this year not purely due to merit, but because of some graciousness from DD, RCB and RR, who lost the matches they are supposed to win. May be some vastu voodoo here, from the Uber Captain.
Brain Vs Brawn - In our last 3 wins in the NJSBCL, noticed one curious thing. Most of us are impatient and can't wait to hit sixes and fours i.e. use our Brawn. As we learnt in the last season, Green ball do not travel that far. Should start using our Brain more and rotate the strike, if the ball is not in the slot to hit. The fielders are not from IPL and are bound to make mistakes, if we push them hard. All we need is good communication between the batsmen. Bad balls will come automatically, which can be thrashed for boundaries. But while waiting for bad balls, do not get bogged down and play dot balls. Rotating the strike is key here. Just my 2 cents. To prove my point, adding an article written by S Rajesh in Cricinfo on who is the leading international player, who plays less dot balls, etc and how it is helping their team.
VVV - Vastu Varun's Voodoo - Found out during our match against Maha CC, Varun doing some voodoo magic. In the middle of his spell, he placed his cigarette lighter below the off-side wide cone. After that, all the balls he bowled almost went so close to that cone, that the batsman started struggling to score and finally ended up loosing the match. Even one of his loose ball, which the batsman tried to hoick over deep mid-wicket, took the edge and went to the off-side cover fielder for a catch. Can we assume that whatever he placed under the cone, had some magnetic (voodoo) power to pull the ball towards it ??? Will Varun replace Vastu Venkatesan as the Uber Captain of Chennai Super Kings, next year. Only time will tell.
Btw, I am a CSK fan internally, but I was hedging myself by saying that they will loose. If they win, I have nothing to loose. Btw, we won this year not purely due to merit, but because of some graciousness from DD, RCB and RR, who lost the matches they are supposed to win. May be some vastu voodoo here, from the Uber Captain.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)