Our veteran bowlers, Sri and Sid started bowling proceedings with Sid getting an edge of their opener batsman in his very first over with an outswinging delivery. Manu made good use of gloves. followed by Srijith picking their another opener giving a simple catch to Vikram on covers. after having lost 2 wickets for 19, their nr 3 and 4 batsman stayed in crease for next 50 so runs. meanwhile our bowling batton was handed over to Antony and so called leg spinner Ram. Both of them were very disciplined, not leaking runs but also unlucky to get wickets. a very close LBW appeal of Ram was turned down by the umpire and many catches dropped of Antony's bowling. only then we had an overseas player, Akshay coming in as our savior (whose birthday happens to be today, so you can wish and ask for party) to give us a breakthrough with a brilliant high catch from Antony on the boundary rope. That was the beginning of their end with Ram striking twice and Akshay taking another wicket before Sid took last 2, their highest scoring batsman again caught by Ram on point and another one by Antony on fine leg. Skipper himself was also very economical and accurate with his bowling but ended up without picking a wicket.

 

All in all it was very satisfying at the end of 1st innings (even when we (Akshay, Agam, Girish, Srijith * 2) dropped 4 catches) where ACC finished with 163 on the board. we could have taken this score anyday on our ground.

 

Now it was left our to out batsman to chase this down and get another victory game. So Agam and Manu opened the innings with agam out LBW on the 6th ball of the innings without scoring a run (that's why i am writing this report. writing report is taking more time than i usually bat ;-)). and that brought our skipper into the crease. Tiggy and Manu both were playing very comfortably while keeping it our required NRR. it was like a summer of '69 seeing them playing together after long. Both Manu and Tiggy were building up our innings nicely when on the first bowl of their leg spinner (real leg spinner) Tiggy was given unfortunate LBW, after ball took a thick flesh of bat before hitting the pad. captain's knock came to end on 32 after 73 runs partnership with Manu. Vikram came into bat with Manu but i guess Manu didn'd like to bat with Vikram so Manu was also LBW soon after on his individual score of 31 and team on 79. We were 3 down (all LBW) on 79 after 18 overs or so. 

 

Girish joined Vikram on crease there it all started. we had first football team of concordia celebrating their and they read Girish written on the back of Girish's T Shirt. All of them starting cheering up for our team but specially Girrririsshhh Girrriissshhh...he suddenly became face or so called back of concordia cricket team. Having so much support, for the first time we felt like playing in our home ground :).

 

Coming back to the game, Girish was playing good cricketing shots and so was Vikram but he took very easy on the leg spinnner (he thinks why does even spinners exist) and after hitting a monsterous six Vikram lofted on long on, but to the delight of us and vikram, he was dropped. ACC didn't know what that means for them and us untill when Vikram hit 4 or 5 sixes of the leg spinner. he ensured that they paid the price for dropping him while reaching his 50 as well with a six. These sixes got our NRR to almost 6 an over and that brought in their strike bowler in action. with his first ball, he got Girish LBW. That got Sid in for batting. Taking single of his first ball Vikram came to the strike and blaming his helmet he got bowled on the 4th ball of this over. our overseas player came into bat afterwards but he was also caught on 0 in the sixth ball of the same over. we lost 3 wickets in the same over while still having 24 runs to chase. demonstrating depth of our batting, we had our experienced middle order batsman in the crease, Ram and Sid. With no nuisance shots both the batsman hit couple of fours with Sid trying to do Dhoni hitting six to win the game but was signaled four by the umpire. Nevertheless, that Shot won us the game ans we finished scoring 165 in 28.3 overs making it 2 wins in a row.

 

So once again we had a chance to say "hardluck" to our opponents and get some "gefeliciteerd" from them :) 

 

Highlights

• our bowlers only giving 8 extras
• Antony - Best fielder, 2 catches and a direct hit.
• Girissshhhh and concordia football team - for cheering up everyone :)
• Manu and Tiggy for their stable partnership ;-)
• Vikram again for some attacking batting
• Sid and Ram taking us to finishing line
• Akshay getting birthday bumps.

 

- Agam