Division Champions!

Yes, we did it, we are the Div F Champions :-)

We beat Zhakaas I would say pretty comfortably at the end.

Zhakaas won the toss and batted first, they made 85, I would say we gave away 10-15 runs extra at the end, we gave away over 20 runs in the last two overs - thanks to some lusty hitting in the end from Abinav.

We started off badly chasing 86 runs for victory, we were 2/2 with Mushtaq and I gone, I was given out runout - Nazeer played one back to the bowler Rohit which he misfielded, Nazeer called and there was a run and I ran and I thought I made it comfortably at the keeper's end but the leg umpire thought otherwise, she raised her hand right away, I stood their stunned at her decision, she was in a good position to judge and she probably thought I didn't ground my bat, but I always do and I infact yell at my other team members if they don't when they bat/run so why wouldn't I, even if it was a close call the benefit of doubt would need to go to the batsmen, whatever might be the case the bottomline was I failed to deliver in the finals and it was really disappointing.

Nazeer and Faheed made sure that we didn't lose any more wickets, they batted beautifully, sensibly, aggresively when needed and brought us close to victory, it was probably Faheed's best effort that I've seen so far, he went onto make 48 runs, he played straight in the V, pulled the short ones and also ran the quick singles when needed, Nazeer played a Captain's knock and carried his bat all the way through, what an effort! Hats off to him, he shined in all departments in the tournament, be it bowling, batting, fielding and ofcourse captaining, he brought the team together and brought out the best in each one of us. Thanks Nazeer - You Rock!

Celebration time guys!

Looking forward to the next season, Div E ofcourse - Summer 2009.

Go SARFAROSH!

Semi-Final 2 - against 'The Opposition'

Our Fifth successive Victory! Yay!!!!! Thats right, we are in the Finals! - Hooray!

We won the toss and elected to field, Nazeer had a plan - obviously, we knew that 'The Opposition' is a better fielding/bowling side than a batting side, Sunny and Saurabh opened, we all knew that their team depends so much on Sunny's batting, while Saurabh was struggling on one end, Sunny was batting with supreme aplomb, he was middling the ball well and played some cracking cover drives, square cuts, one of the pull shots he played sailed over the deep mid-wicket boundary for a six off Mushtaq. He was starting to be a thorn in the flesh, Saurabh on the other hand had no clue on how to play Mushtaq and Suhail, he was basically eating the deliveries, Sunny was the only one who was scoring but the run rate was under control for us, 5 overs 16, 7 overs 24 and so on, Saurabh finally was gone stumped by me off the bowling of Nazeer, Mehul came in next and was gone immediately caught by Sumit at short backward point off Nazeer, a well thought-out plan by Nazeer. Rucheek the captain came in next and was rotating the strike better, the run rate got a little better, but then came Sunny's dismissal, Suhail pitched one short of a length and Sunny went for a pull, he was never in control of the shot I thought but the ball was traveling and Faheed was at the deep square leg boundary, he moved in nicely made a split second decision either to take the ball on one bounce or to go for the catch and he went for it and pulled off an excellent diving catch, I haven't seen an outfield catch of this calibre in ARCL so far, it was definitely a turning point in the game, the score was in the upper 40s when Sunny left and they were 3 down, and they managed to add only around 20 more runs at the end after that dismissal, a couple of overs later Mushtaq pulled off a blinder of a catch Jonty style at point to get rid of Deepak C, the ball was traveling wide off point, but Mushtaq kept his eyes on the ball all through and timed his dive very well, he was almost airborne when he took the catch, all of us were shaking our head in disbelief on the commitment that Mushtaq showed. Our fielding was top class, Faheed again stopped a certain boundary at short extra cover moving to his right quickly from short cover and stopping that full blooded extra cover drive from Saurabh early in the innings. We definitely did raise the bar today in all aspects. The Opposition were 67 runs at the end of 16 overs for the loss of 4 wickets.

After a superb effort in the field and restricting The Opposition to 67 the team looked confident, Mushtaq and Faheed opened, Faheed played a straight drive to mid-off and took off for the single, hesitated in between, the mid-on fielder Rakshit threw it to the bowler Deepak C who threw the stumps down, Faheed's dive at the end did not save his wicket and was run out, a disastrous start, I went in next, I felt that the wicket was playing really well, the temperature was in the mid-80s and the wicket seemed to have dried up nicely and the ball was coming on to the bat, it was good for batting, I was able to find the gaps with ease, especially in the cover region, I played to my strengths, Mushtaq on the other end was playing very sensibly, was not taking any risks and was milking the ball for ones and twos, we carried off in similar fashion until the 6th over, we were 33 for 1, Rucheek the bowler bowled one on the leg stump on a good length I played towards mid-wicket with a straight bat, Sunny was positioned at forward short leg an interesting position I thought, he put his left hand out and the ball stuck in his hand to pull of a stunning catch, I was out for 12.

Muneer came in next and started to play his shots from the word go, he hit two glorious boundaries off successive balls and the third one for a two, he followed it up with a couple more fantastic boundaries and we were almost done :), Mushtaq on the other hand carried on with his ones and twos, Muneer finished off in style at the end with a 'maximum' when there was 6 runs required, Muneer made 26 n.o and Mushtaq 21 n.o, we chased down this total in 9 overs to reach the FINALS.

Way to Go Sarfarosh!

Our Finals will be with Zhakaas on 7/19 at 10:30 am at the MS grounds.

Lets move on to Div E as the 'title winners' :) GO SARFAROSH!

Against 'Items' - 6/28

Sorry about the late post ...

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Our fourth successive win ...

I should say we are becoming a very disciplined side as the league is progressing, today we showed how these little partnerships in the middle can help, 'Items' won the toss and put us into bat, Nazeer and Faheed opened, Faheed hit an effortless six in the very first over (could be the very first ball I don' remember), it was an half-flick-half-pull kind of shot over the deep square-leg boundary, he made it look so easy, but he was out soon caught behind for 6 runs, it was a good one-handed catch by the keeper moving to his right the bowler was Rohit, Muneer came in next.

Nazeer was out the next over caught behind and again a good catch by the keeper moving to his left this time one-handed again, the bowler was Vikas, two quick wickets and now we were in trouble, Sumit went in next to join Muneer at the crease. Both of them played sensibly, Sumit in particular played some excellent cover drives, one of them reached the cover boundary, the pair put on around twenty runs before Sumit fell caught at long-on for 19 runs, I went in next and immediately Muneer fell, hung his bat around to a wide off-side delivery and spooned it to the point fielder for 7 - this is not the first time Muneer got out in that fashion, I hope this doesn't happen again with Muneer.

Suhail came in next to join me and we put on around twenty runs, we ran really well and converted two's into three's, I felt good in the middle and enjoyed the square-cut to the boundary. Suhail played some good drives as well, but I felt he was reaching for the ball and not waiting on it, the wicket that day was not too conducive for batting and one had to wait for the ball and play the shots, when things were looking good for us, I tried to play a cover drive and I didn't get to the pitch of the ball and the ball hit my bat and I thought it hit the ground before it went to the keeper the fielders went up and the umpire seemed like he was not too sure but he succumbed to the pressure. I was out for 8, Suhail left soon after skying the ball to mid-wicket and was out caught for 15, but again another two quick wickets and another 20-odd-run partnership.

We were six down now and around 60 runs on the board, two new batsmen again in the crease - Mushtaq and Amogh, guess what, yes, they make another 18 odd runs together and we ended up at 78 for 6 after 16, Mushtaq played some good drives and made 11 runs with good support from Amogh who made 6.

78 is a defend able target by any means at these MS grounds, Items I thought were too cautious in their approach while chasing, our bowlers bowled very well but Items didn't take any chance, I thought they were waiting for something to happen, the asking rate was climbing and they were still scoring at a ridiculously low rate, I think at one point they were like 23 off 8, Mushtaq, Sumit, Suhail, Nazeer and Amogh, all bowled well. Nazeer and Amogh took two and Mushtaq and Sumit took one each, one runout by me and Faheed took a fantastic catch at short cover which was hit hard and low. I need to mention that Items had no clue how to play Nazeer's off-spinners, they were all out for 51 at the end.

Well done Sarfarosh!

On to the Semis ...