WCC bowled over by VSR

“We will do it for Adhi”. This was, is and will be the motivating line for myself and Kartik Srinivasan whenever we enter the field, but the truth is we have never done it for Adhi. Yes, it’s the beginning of the same old sad story and the title is “ WE LOST THE SEMIS YET AGAIN” . Since BOFA signed in our captain through INFOSYS, we had to replace someone instead of him and without any hesitation the radar pointed towards me. This was quite new to me as I had never captained even my school team till date. The only experience I had was to captain our second string team against Sindhi college for a practice match and definitely that wasn’t enough to captain a club team in a big Semi final. Putting all that behind I started to think about the various situations and the decisions I should take during those times. Thanks to CSCA proprietor Richard for postponing our match, I got lots and lots of time to think. One fine Sunday morning I went to the nets with all this captaincy thoughts in my mind. As usual I wore all my protective gears and started to bat. To my horror I couldn’t middle even a single ball, my foot was going nowhere. I got cleaned up more than a couple of times, the sound of timber rattled my ears and the confidence level touched a new low. That moment I decided I am not the right person to captain this team since I was becoming a liability. I messaged to Adhi anna and told him that I want to stay away from the game and the club for sometime. Some encouraging words from him and Kartik made me to reconsider the decision and that was done half heartedly. Finally after so much fight within myself I accepted the captaincy.

The day before the match started as usual with everyone reaching the practice venue earlier than me, though I had a genuine reason for it this time around. Since my Pakistani friends wanted to me work on weekends, I went to the practice late and started batting straight away as Kartik had done prior arrangements for that. To everyone’s surprise I was timing the ball quite well. The session ended on a high with one square cut over point and I was out speaking with everyone on how their practice went. Before calling everyone for announcing the team, I gathered all my thoughts and was silent for sometime as Kartik was giving innumerous ideas for the batting order. Finally I called everyone and announced the team. It was no surprise as Karthi and Vishak were announced as the substitutes, with Prassana anna bowing out in the last minute, so we had to pull Vinod (Nandubut) into the scheme of things. The tentative batting order was also told to the team so that they can get prepared mentally. Few basic things were said to the team by me and Kartik, after which the practice went on with me leaving the field.

As I was enjoying the India versus Pakistan match on the television, I got a call from Venkat saying that our opener and keeper Prashant will not make it for the match tomorrow as his grandmother expired. On contrasting reasons it was a disappointing moment for him as well as our team. Now again the radar started to rotate for pointing out the wicket keeper and again it stared towards me. I was not ready to accept this as I didn’t want to let my team down on various fronts. We had heated discussions on this and after so many arguments and ideas we ended up calling Sriraj to fill in that position which he accepted readily bringing peace between me and Kartik. This in turn triggered another question… “ Who will open the batting now” . The radar never really rotated to point at me this time as Kartik held it with his hands and was keeping it in front of my nose. Even though I wasn’t that comfortable with the decision, I accepted it. Too many dramas and too many events leading up to the D day.

The day has arrived. I got up only at 10:15 in the morning with more than two wake up messages in my mobile asking me to be in WCC HQ by 11 am. Before that I remembered, I am the captain and I should send a motivational message. After so much thinking, I sent a decent one. Then I got ready and all of us were in the ground very early, to our surprise the opponents also came on time to ensure a full match. We started warming up and that’s when the umpires decided its time for the toss. I changed to whites and went for the toss only to see the coin fall for the opponents call. With no hesitation they opted to bat first. After our customary huddle and the ever so stupid Shaa boo three we took the field.

Since the field set up was already briefed to the team, everyone took their places and we were set for the ball one.

Sriram started it with his usual packed off side field, but the batsmen was looking aggressive as he came down the track and smacked the ball over extra cover through which he sent a strong message, but that didn’t last long as he came down the track once too many to see his off stump go for a roll. We were pumped up by hearing the sound of timber. Sridhar too started with equal pace and precision, but was quite unlucky to miss out the edges on many occasions.  But he built up pressure which forced the batsmen to go for a non existent single and getting out tamely. We were off to a great start… We were slowly controlling the game. The boundaries weren’t coming that easily and the batsmen were made to work for their runs. I introduced Sunil who obliged by removing the next one by rattling the stumps. Vijay too gave us an important breakthrough as they were getting the momentum through that batsmen. We went into the drinks break on a high with them scoring only 72/4 in 16 overs.. Yes.. we were above the over rate, thanks to my bowlers who were very disciplined. This post break phase of the game has been pathetic for us throughout the tournament and we were very adamant in continuing that again. The intensity dropped, the shoulders drooped and the bowlers lost confidence. Runs started to flow easily as they got a boundary almost every over. But the partnership was broken by Venkat as he got the ball to bounce a bit more and the batsmen edged it safely into Sriraj’s hands. Even after this wicket they went on scoring steadily and losing some wickets in the slog. Sadly Vijay got injured and that hampered the death bowling preparations and I was forced to use Venkat’s full quota, but he was good in his second spell, pulling of a brilliant run out of a set batsmen and another wicket to pull things back to our side. At the end we managed to restrict them to 159/8 in 30 overs and also completed the innings ten minutes earlier than the scheduled time with each bowler giving away only one wide apiece. I was very happy with the bowling performance, my only concern was that the fielding could have been even better.

Kartik came to me and told that the umpires appreciated our bowling and said that the opponents are a wonderful batting side and to restrict them to around 160 in a small ground like Sindhi was terrific. That statement was a good encouragement for us, but I thought we gave some extra 30 runs, a feeling every captain will have after bowling first. I was mentally a bit tired, so I asked if Dilip could open as he had the experience of doing it before, he readily agreed and after a brief pep up talk Venkat and Dilip walked into the field.

Now the batting part, a part in which we have not shined in the entire season. We have had brilliant performances from Venkat and Bhoopal, but except them no one was consistent. So it was definitely going to be difficult to chase that target against their bowling attack. We started well with boundaries coming from the bats of Venkat and Dilip, but suddenly due to miscommunication we lost Venkat. That was a huge blow as he is the most prolific batsmen of our team and to lose him so early put a dent in our plans. Soon I walked out to the centre and stood, and sooner I came back and sat with my team mates to discuss how many of my stumps fell down. A duck in the first match as a captain, think it’s a curse to many. Sunil and Dilip started to build a partnership but an over ambitious shot from Dilip saw his stumps go for an evening walk, that’s NO.2 for the day. Kartik Srinivasan walked out to the field as confident as ever, took guard only to see his off stump produce a music which only R.Karthik can explain, and then there were three for the day. In went Sriram, played few defensive strokes and came back, this time also it was the off stump. The count increased to four. Now it was Ashwin’s turn to bat, a pat in the back for him for not allowing the bowler to disturb his stumps, it was LBW this time as we saw Ashwin limp off the field and throw his shoe into the pavilion, thankfully no one was hurt. Sunil tried to show some resistance and played some pleasing strokes but he also didn’t last long as he edged it to the keeper and “WALKED”. Yes, I am not lying here. It was Sunil who walked even before the umpire raised his finger and this gesture raised many eyebrows among us. Sriraj was the lone fighter with the bat as he toiled hard and put up some runs to take the team total above fifty. Others also went in and came out very fast. Finally we ended up scoring 76. A pathetic batting performance to say the least. The Semi final was over and we were beaten all ends up. Their fast bowler who liked our stumps was awarded the MOM. We started packing our kits and reached home very quickly. None of us were really tired. Another semi final gone with the wind…..

Special appreciation for Vinod who was the most improved and the most disciplined fielder of the day. A special thanks to Sriram and Sridhar who bowled their hearts out. Venkat’s field presence and smart bowling is a boon to the team. Ashwin was very stingy with the ball giving away only 3.75 rpo. Sunil provided the balance to the team. Thanks to Sriraj for his brilliance with the bat and he was very athletic behind the stumps as well.

A million thanks to Karthi, Vishak and kutty Ashwin for giving us drinks and glucose. You guys rocked.!! :)

And finally, Thanks a lot for everyone in the squad for making this season a successful one.

Fact and Statistics – There were 5 ducks in the innings (Maximum by WCC against all opponents) . This can be a quiz question in the future, so please make a note of it.

PS: Please ignore the grammatical errors and the choice of words as this is an informal match review.

S.Murali Mohan – Captain,WCC.

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