Crushers won the toss and elected to bat first and I think they started on the wrong-foot, one always need to play to their strengths and Crushers's strengths lied in their bowling attack, but still they chose to bat first. I am sure they had their reasons why ...
Uday Dave their captain started off well punishing the looseners from Sumit who was basically warming up in the first over preparing for the kill later on :-), Mushtaq bowled next and mixed up his deliveries very well, he struck an excellent line and length from the word go, it was really good to see him come back and bowl so well after sitting out a few games due to injuries, Sumit was literally unplayable from his second over onwards, Mushtaq came back in his second over and got Uday - a well thoughout plan, he bowled three different deliveries on the offside and then bowled a straight delivery bang on the middle stick and Uday scooped it to mid-wicket were Muneer swallowed it with his usual lazy elegance, it was not an easy catch to hold on to, an important wicket since Uday looked really dangerous, he made a quick 20 runs.
After Uday Dave left, wickets began to tumble for Crushers, Sumit has been very consistent with his bowling and batting so far in the season, and his bowling was at its best this game, his yorker length deliveries were unplayable and the batsmen had no options but to lose their stumps. Suhail bowled next and he also has been a very consistent performer for us the entire season, his natural inswingers were a treat to watch from behind the stumps and one of the wickets that he took was a fantastic delivery that pitched outside off and swung-in sharply and the batsman was drawn into to play that delivery and genuinely knicked it to me behind the stumps for my seventh catch of the season, I wish I could've made that my tenth or eleventh had I taken the half-chances that came my way, may be I would've if I were playing ten years ago :-).
The last four Crusher's batsmen scratched around and managed to put up seventy-one on the board for their team, the consolation for us at the end was when Nazeer (who was not at his best that day but still managed to bowl well and were unlucky a couple of times) took the last batsman Karthik's wicket by having him play-on to his stumps when there were only three more balls to be bowled in the innings, we were able to grab that valuable point for getting all of the opponent's wickets.
Nazeer and Faheed opened the innings and put up an opening partnership of fifteen runs before Faheed fell to a Karthik delivery caught really well by Neeraj for two runs, it wasn't a bad shot but Neeraj was quickly on to his right and caught well with both hands at short cover.
Sumit was in next and gave Nazeer great company in the middle, Nazeer went onto make a scintillating unbeaten forty-six his second forty-five+ innings in the season so far, he made some beautiful drives which was pleasant to watch from the sidelines, the pick of the lot being a straight drive for four towards the later part of his innings.
The famed Crushers bowling attack looked weak that day, Arun (whom his captain calls the 'Man with the Golden Arm') was having a bad day, earlier he was hit wicket for one run and while bowling wasn't able to penetrate the wonderful defence of Nazeer, the credit should go to Nazeer for playing Arun and the rest of the Crushers bowlers with utter disdain, Nazeer scored almost seventy-percent of the total score and won the game single-handedly with his batting with excellent support from Sumit. Sumit was unbeaten on fourteen and played like he usually does including back-to-back boundaries at the end to finish the game in style.
We WON by six wickets - a Crushing Victory!
On to BlackHawks next!
