Quickies rattle opponents – provide a record win for WCC

This was the day when everything went right for us – especially for the bowling and fielding unit. The scorching sun’s heat was no pain for us as we enjoyed and entertained ourselves upon the opponents’ massive batting fiasco. We were on time to the venue, but the match started 25 minutes late, but it didn’t matter then because we knew that the light would be available till 6 PM as summer had already begun. I was dead tired the previous day after the practice session under the hot sun, and was apprehensive about the match day – especially with nobody being a fitness expert. That prompted me to pack 3 packs of glucose and 5 packs of electrol, which I fortunately remembered to carry it for the match.

The playing eleven was no surprise – but the most surprising element for the team members was the fact that I chose to open the innings this time. The coin was tossed around 1:20 PM. I didn’t want to be a victim of the leather hunt, so wanted to win the toss badly but that didn’t happen. I called a “heads” but the head chose to hide itself from the sun, just like we did. The opponents, calling themselves “CRICKET HORIZON”, for obvious reasons chose to bat without any hesitation. I wasn’t upset at that point, but would have liked to bat first. The strategy was to bundle them within 100 runs so that we could chase it down easily especially after having fielded for 2 hours. We started off with Sriram and Sridhar at opposite ends with usual fielding positions. With the gloves covering my hands, I was too comfortable this time around with my legs, hands and body responding accurately to what my mind & intelligence wanted them to do. Sriram was extracting lovely away swing and Sridhar equaled it with steeping bounce. Most of the balls hit my gloves than the batsman’s willow. We had an early chance that went begging when Venkat dropped a regulation at 2nd slip, but we knew it wouldn’t turn out to be costly.

The first wicket was a boon when the batsmen went for a non-existent 2nd run towards deep gully when Ashwin threw the ball back to my end and I had no problems in breaking the stumps with the batsman well short. Sriram induced an edge for the next wicket that I gathered with no problems. In came a left hander and I thought we needed to get rid of him immediately failing which would result in fielding changes for every run they score. Sriram produced a beauty of a delivery – one that Glenn McGrath produces to dismiss Brian Lara frequently – the ball pitched on a good length on middle and leg and beat the batsman’s outside edge to kiss the off-stump. Lucky for us that the umpire saw the stump being rattled – something that was difficult to spot with bails dispensed. All this was a beginning before the tornado hit them.

After an opening spell of 4 overs each for Sriram and Sridhar, I called upon Prasanna as the first change. He started carefully, but I spotted him gradually increasing his pace and I knew something big was coming. Also understanding that they were facing great difficulty playing fast bowlers, I introduced Vijay as the 2nd change – something that is usually not done. Vijay responded brilliantly as well but it was Prasanna who sucked their blood out. He killed them with his pace and brought about 2 caught behind decisions –one lucky and the other a comedy. Vijay on the other hand had an overconfident batsmen’s off stump reeling and Sriram held on to a simple chance at mid-off. Meanwhile Ashwin snapped a brilliant sharp chance at backward point earlier although he juggled it a little bit to pouch it on the 2nd attempt. The last 2 wickets were cleaned up comprehensively with the stumps being rattled twice and we had 59 to chase. I’m sure no one would remember where the runs came from – it was a fantastic effort by our bowlers to restrict the opponents to a meager total. It was really a child’s play.

I walked out with Venkat 15 mins later and started off as usual. Venkat scored 13 off 8 balls and fell in the 2nd over exposing his leg stump. Murali and I stayed for some while, laughing within ourselves at the attempted sledges from the opposition bowlers. A low-kept delivery knocked my stumps back and soon after Murali fell trying to drive uppish towards point. Ashwin and Sriram ensured there were no more mishaps and we were done in 10 overs. Although we lost 3 wickets, we were absolutely pleased with the performance. Our great bowling unit provided us with another exceptional win. Prasanna collected his well deserved MOM – his 2nd in 4 matches – hats off to him. We are now sure of playing the semi-finals and we look forward to better our previous season position.

Aditya Ravindran – Captain, WCC.