Venkat’s continuous firing and Sriram’s fifer seal a nail-biting win for WCC

With yet another week’s break since the previous match, and having no practice at all, we went ahead with confidence into Match 5 of the season. We needed 1 more win to qualify for the semi-finals (at least that’s what I assume) and were desperate not to leave it to the last 2 matches. While our professionalism with punctuality continued; the unavailability of players also continued. This time we were short of 11 players, but one of my friends came to the rescue of filling the slot. Thanks to RamC. Boopal, Vinod and Sriraj made themselves unavailable due to diverse reasons. With all confusions and anxiety around the unavailability of players settled, we reached the venue an hour ahead of schedule in order to give the bowlers little time to get into the groove my rolling their hands in the practice pitches. It also made me understand RamC’s bowling capabilities, his strengths and weaknesses, and where he would fit into the bowling line-up.

Murali brought with himself more problems – for him and for the team as he ruled himself out of the match with a fever – that too after the team list had been prepared. I had the cushion to replace him with RamC’s companion (he who came to witness the match – even in his wildest dreams he might not have imagined his name to appear in the playing XI, I bet), who had some cricketing experience with him although it had been sleeping for more than 4 years. Murali Mohan S was struck out and Srivathsan was named in the eleven. Even a lover wouldn’t have waited any longer, but we were patient enough to wait for the opponents (VISION 2K) as they casually arrived 15 mins later than the scheduled start of play. My Physics teacher Prof. Sundaresan would have commented to the opponents “You are too late for this match and too early for the next.” Abiding by the new principles of CSCA, we were granted 30 full overs for batting and the opponents were penalized with 3 overs. It was advantage that we reaped for being consistently punctual and we took it happily. We also appreciate CSCA and the onfield umpires for implementing the rules.

For the 3rd consecutive time in the season, I was spot-on with the toss and had as much hesitations in batting first as one would have when Aishwarya Rai proposed for a date. The sun was red hot and the heat was radiating more than we felt in earlier matches. Venkat got off to a flier right from first ball and looked to continue his supreme form sending the ball outside the park almost every over. Babloo missed out on a sweep to give a simple catch to the keeper and I walked in with lots of confidence and expectations. I began striking the ball well right from the start and after watching Venkat rocketing a couple of sixes out of the park, decided to match his standards and hit one almost for the maximum towards the longest part of the boundary. The next ball was also in the slot but I missed the swing and heard the timber behind me crash. The feeling was as bad as Don Bradman would have when he got stranded on 299*, the fact here was that I was in a very good striking form and couldn’t convert it to a big score – but no regrets – I brought myself into a balanced frame of batting mind and that feels positive. Ashwin played too sensitively during his tenure, especially after being hit by an uneven bounce, at the crease and offered a flick to the hands of square leg before drinks. At the stroke of drinks we were 85/3 with 15 more overs to go. Venkat was nearly dead when I requested him to carry his bat through – as that was required. He continued his onslaught after the drinks but fell plumb in front for a brilliant 73. RamC was joined by Sriram and both tried to rotate strike to a good extent but RamC fell short to a direct hit by the opposition captain from point. Prasanna walked in with our hopes relying on him to convert the start into a good score and he played too well with the bat striking big when necessary and rotating otherwise. Sriram stepped out to be stumped, but Prasanna continued his rhythm with Karthik contributing a little towards the end. We managed 157/9 in 30 overs with a couple of run-outs while attempting over-ambitious runs.

I considered them to be a good batting side as well (not that they were a brilliant bowling side, but the bowled well in parts) and was very cautious and calculative right from the word “Play” in the second innings. I wanted to have my fielders on the right spot and didn’t want to leak away runs unnecessarily. I also had to ensure that the bowlers get enough break between spells as the scorching sun was playing its part still. Sriram started off well and picked one right upfront by means of an inside edge. Sridhar at the other end also picked up the other opener and we felt we were in the right track. As it looked like the incoming batsmen were feeling comfortable against fast bowling, although Sriram picked another during his course of his first spell, I introduced Ashwin into the attack and he was right on target and got rid of one to hold a simple caught & bowled. Ironically, this was his first catch for WCC. It will take some time till his catches overtake his drops. Prasanna on the other end was too unlucky to accept too many inside edges from the batsman – he wasn’t able to digest the fact that none of them met the stumps. Some runs leaked in this manner in his overs and just before drinks I introduced RamC who started off well and picked up the dangerous batsman before the stroke of drinks – a sharp catch by Venkat at mid-wicket. At the stroke of drinks they needed around 83 runs off 14 overs with 5 wickets in hand. It was a tricky chase at this point, but I had an intuition that our bowlers would come back strong. RamC kicked off right after drinks to take another valuable wicket – this time Babloo taking a lollypop at square leg. Even Geoffrey Boycott’s mom would have taken that catch in her sleep. As a captain I did not make the mistake in spreading the field too much at this juncture which could have given them too many easy runs. I chose to pack and block the off-side to stop any runs in front of the wicket there and at this precise moment, when I thought that they batsmen were getting settled, I brought back Sriram to give us one crucial breakthrough. As beautiful as his out-swingers with the new ball, his in-swingers, rather reverse ones, with the old ball was equally deadly. He delivered a beauty that knocked off the top of the middle stump and the breakthrough was delivered. We were never made to relax as the opponents seemed to be sending in good batsmen even low down the order – it was as though a traditional Indian woman would have been relieved of a delivery pressure only to find her 2 months down the line that she’s got pregnant again. It reached a stage where we narrowed down to around 34 off 6 overs with 3 wickets in hand. I knew we had to bowl them out and I brought in Ashwin to deliver the 24th over where he managed to trap another dangerous customer in front. Sriram cleaned up the next two wickets in the very next over with Babloo and Karthi taking good catches and I sighed in relief. We won by 9 runs.

Although it wasn’t as interesting as the TORNADOZ match, it was definitely nail-biting. Our fielding lacked discipline, but the bowlers headed by Sriram managed to get things done themselves. Ashwin and RamC were too good in supporting the bowling department with 2 wickets apiece and Sridhar managed to get one early in the innings. It was a hard time for Prasanna and Vijay with no luck to their favours, but I’m sure everyone will agree that they are far good bowlers than the statistics of this match would suggest. But the STAR of the day along with Sriram was obviously Venkat, who’s brilliant knock set us a good platform, not to forget Prasanna’s late contribution that extended our score to a competitive one.

Aditya Ravindran – Captain, WCC.

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