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 ...