A 'not so Thumping' win - but a win Nevertheless!

Vs Autobots - 8/16 - 11am

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After winning the toss we put Autobots into bat, Jay and Suhail bowled brilliantly didn't give the batsmen any room, both their openers were good players in my opinion, they played with a straight bat and then came the turning point - a runout, challenging Jay's arm from long-on, the second-run was probably there to be taken but Jay's hard and fast throw to Suhail (the bowler) found the runner a foot short and from then on wickets began to tumble like a pack of cards, at one stage Autobots were 15/5, but I think we gave it away again like we did in the previous game we began to bowl wides and noballs, at the end Autobots were all out for 40 off 14 overs. Jay, Suhail, Nazeer, Mushtaq and Sumit all of them bowled well, if Mushtaq can control his wides he'll be a great bowler for sure - undoubtedly.

Requiring 41 to wrap up, Faheed and Muneer opened, Muneer got out quickly holding out to long-on, Faheed made 5 before he went across to try and play his half-sweep-half-flick to fine leg and lost his leg stump, I think it was a little early in his innings to play that kind of shot even though this has fetched him a lot of runs in the previous season, I hope he plays straight and in the 'V' until he gets his eye in. Sumit and I were in the crease and I felt Sumit and I can hang in and not lose any more wickets and chase this meagre total, but apparently I failed to keep one down at point and hit a square cut straight to the point fielder who did well to hold on to it in his second attempt, I didn't get in the middle and it hit the bottom of my bat and spun to point. I was gone for 6. Nazeer soon fell stumped for 5. Jay went in next and he and Sumit made sure we didn't lose any more wickets and finished the game with 3 overs to spare and 3 wickets in hand.

It was Jay's day all the way, he accounted for 6 of the 7 wickets that fell in some way or the other - 1 runout, 2 outfield catches and 2 wickets (one of them a wonderful c&b). He also played sensibly at the end with Sumit.

Sumit batted brilliantly and did what was told of him and was unbeaten at the end with 11 runs.

A good win overall but not a convincing win.

We learned later that we missed an umpiring assignment the same day at 8:15 am and that will cost us 10 points (penalty) - Oops!

Well, lets look ahead and win the remaining games convincingly to make up for that 10 points.

Go SARFAROSH!

Winning streak comes to an end!

Aug 09, 2009 Vs TheOpposition

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After eight successive wins we lost today's game - Yikes!

We didn't bowl well and could have done a little better with the bat.

The Opposition (the team we played the semi-finals against in Div F) won the toss and elected to bat, this was a new ground (MS Ground #6) which we were not familiar with, it was an 8:15 am Sunday game, not sure what happened to our bowlers, we were pitching it short and wide and the batsmen capitalized on it and got off to a terrific start - just what they needed.

We gave aways 16 Extras and that says it all on how badly we bowled, it means 16 extra deliveries and 16 runs - bad, most of their batsmen chipped in with 10-15 runs and the rest were obviously extras, there were some brief moments of brilliance from a couple of our players one was from our one and and only Sumit - two terrific back-to-back deliveries both bowled and Adeel's (substituting for Amogh who probably fractured his little finger while fielding) spectacular dive to a quarter-chance catch. TheOpposition made 87 for 6 off 16 - Sumit and Nazeer took 2 wickets, Suhail took 1 and the other was a run out.

Faheed and I opened needing 88 to win, Faheed skied one to cover and was caught in the very first over, I started off well, I felt good since I was middling the ball early in the innings, the bowlers then began to settle in and bowled and a near perfect line, now I began to give them dot balls and our scoring rate was climbing, Nazeer on the other end was playing well not wasting too many deliveries and we ran singles and twos well, but we needed boundaries, our asking rate climbed to seven an over, I began to open my shoulders and was ready to go after the bowlers after a straight-six which I really didn't middle well to be honest and I was surprised that the bat that I was using still had that power to let the ball sail over the long-on boundary where the fielder caught it past the boundary line, soon after that Nazeer and I was caught in a bad-mix up and I was run out (yes, again) , Nazeer and I had a good 50+ run partnership, but soon Nazeer fell caught behind, Suhail and Sumit did well to get us close to the target, we required 13 runs off 10 balls and I still couldn't believe we lost it from there, 3-4 dot balls followed and Suhail was run out and Sumit skied one to long on and was caught. Last ball we required 6 runs to win and 5 runs to tie, Mushtaq almost did it with a straight lofted drive to long on but the fielder got it one bounce.

Good decent effort from TheOpposition and also we helped them out with our Extras and my inability to get runs quickly in the early part of the innings helped TheOpposition clinch victory.

On to Autobots next - 8/16 11:00 am.

GO SARFAROSH!

First Game - Summer League 2009

Well after basking in the glory for sometime of winning the Div F title for Spring League '09 the team is looking ahead now.

We kicked-off the season with a win in the first game against Zhakaas - yes the team we played in the finals last season, they looked like a tired lot, we didn't see a couple of their regular players. I was rested this game along with Mushtaq, we gave Adeel a chance to play in the '8'. Jay Nair found a place in the '8' as well (ofcourse).

Zhakaas won the toss and put us into bat :-) , Muneer and Amogh opened for a change, Amogh couldn't keep one down and was out caught at short mid-wicket, I think he should play to his strengths which is the cover region where he has that natural tendency to cover drive anything full or straight to him which is top class stuff, but he should be careful playing in the mid-wicket region to a ball anything on middle or leg - hit it really hard when you want to play in the mid-wicket region if not play with soft hands and keep it down and nudge it to square leg or backward square leg or even play in the 'V' into the mid-on/long-on region.

Nazeer came in next and settled down well with Muneer walking into the bowler and playing it straight for singles, Muneer was at his best - great pulls to the backward square leg region for twos, both of them did well until the 8th over, I felt that Zhakaas figured out Muneer really well later on as the innings progressed and began to bowl to him fuller on the off and managed to get dot balls, since the scoreboard was not ticking Nazeer began to take risks and was missing as well, 8-12 overs fetched only 10 runs total, something we should think about going forward. Muneer got out after the 12th over to a well made 28 off 39 balls. Sumit came in next to join Nazeer and began to accelerate - good decision to send Sumit ahead keeping in mind the batting conditions and the ball not coming onto bat we needed someone technically sound as well as someone who could hit boundaries and Sumit was perfect. Nazeer soon fell trying to accelerate the scoring, another fine innings from Nazeer - 29 off 33 balls. Sumit ended up unbeaten with 18 off only 12 balls and we made a total of 88 off 16 - I would say 12-15 runs short off target but nevertheless a respectable score.

Zhakaas began their run chase well, milking singles and twos, but we didn't wait too long for the first wicket, Amogh scalped the first one caught brilliantly by Suhail at cover, wickets began to fall at regular intervals, but one of their batsmen looked threatening and almost took the game away from us, he hit two sixes one of them a full toss and another one which he converted into a full toss, but thanks to Jay who bowled Prashant the danger batsman with a beauty which came in and took the bails off, the batsman had no clue on how to play that delivery he was trying to defend and still missed it - classy, Jay bowled brilliantly and gave away only 3 runs off 3 overs for 1 wicket - Jay Ho! :-), we wrapped them up at the end for a paltry 57, Amogh took 2 wickets and Jay, Nazeer and Suhail took 1 each, the other two wickets were run outs one from Nazeer and the last one from me when I sub'ed for Muneer in the field.

Good start to the season, Go Sarfarosh!