Scorecard
The plan was to give many new guys a chance while maintaining comptetiveness in the game.
Players were identified who havent had to bat and/or bowl in a while and categorised into as "Must Bat" and "Must bowl"
These players will bat/bowl regardless of the game situation and comptetiveness.
("Must Bat" players will Bat within the top order - #1 - #6.
"Must bowl" players will bowl atleast 2, preferably 3 overs.
Both need to be bat/bowl in games situations which are not inconsequential:
Eg: Bowling the 30 over with the opposition neding 40 runs off last over)
Must Bat
============
Vineel
Kosike
Ravi Mangipudi
Abhi
Must Bowl
============
Venky
Murty (medium pace)
Pramod
Ravi Darbha
Bharat
Ravi Reddy*
Batting:
========
Vineel,Pradeep were unlucky to miss out on some batting practice. But Denison bowled well.
Young guys, surprisingly sharp! With a little more experience, look out for this team -
they might surprise a few strong teams :-)
Ravi Mangipudi (20 off 38 balls) - Good start - confident. Consolidated due to loss of
quick wickets. A little on the slower side but good enough considering the bad start.
Kosike (12 off 39 b)- Slow innings, consolidating partnership with Abhi which settled the
innings.
Not too bad, but need to make it a little faster with singles into the gaps AND punishing
bad balls. Missed a few long hops. Needs to have confidence to punish those bad balls
regardless of the situation.
The wides bowled by Denison saved some blushes for the top order who managed to score only
20 runs off the bat in first 8 overs. (And ony 25 runs off the bat in first 10 overs).
Denison did bowl well, but they never had more than 3 fielders in front of the wicket on the off side.
Huge gap in the covers went totally unutilized.
Need to improve on milking singles esp. with such huge gaps.
Abhi (17 off 31 b)- Moderately paced. Boundaries helped strike rate. Punished bad balls
(or balls bowled to his strengths).
Venky and Ravi Darbha - Had productive partnerships with Pramod - 25 and 21 runs
respectively.
Pramod, was a little indisciplined in running between wickets. To his credit, he did
improve and ended up playing a crucial middle order innings. He also ran a whole
lot (3 triples and 5 doubles). With a little time off from cricket, thats not easy to
endure. But those pauses and hops in the middle of the run have to go :-)
Four runouts point to some improvements we have to make. Bad fundamentals in running and
some bad luck also played a part in running out Ravi Darbha, Vindy, Bharat and Pramod.
Especially not dragging the bat (hanging it in the air a la' Saurav Ganguly :-)
But its not all our batsmen's fault. You have to give credit to some sharp fielding by
Denison.
In all the batting had more positives than negatives. Good solid partnerships,
consolidation when you lose quick wickets and late middle order acceleration were all spot
on.
Though it looks a little unattractive, this is what we need to practice.
Once our order is set, we really dont have to worry much about big hitting - that will come
naturally once u spend some time in the middle.
But till then its better to grind out the basics - running between wickets, rotating the strike,
consolidating when we lose quick wickets (regardless of the # of overs left), new batsmen playing
straight (again, regardless of the # of overs left), preventing middle order collapses (which are
caused only by panicking and forgetting the basics) etc.,
One huge negative, was not being bale to finish the 30 overs.
The importance cannot be stressed enough. Ideally the 9 wkt pair should play like its the last wicket.
If it comes to the 10wkt pair, they need to eschew all shot-making and concentrate on playing defense
and ground shots. If the field is up, then they can go for lofted shots.
Just stay there and get as many runs as u can. Wides, edges, legbyes - all these add up and could
make the differrence in the end.
Credit also to Vinod Kosike for being on top of a couple of close runouts and calling them
fairly. Overall the umpiring was awesome. Murthy, Vindy, Pradeep, Vineel, Kosike etc., did a
great job calling the game fairly. That set the trend and Denison was unbelievably good to
follow suit.
They gave 4 LBW decisions and played really fair throughout.
Bowling
=======
146 to win was not a big total, but playing on our home ground, we had to feel confident.
Vineel started out with a bang. He bowled over the wickets - which he should've done long
back :-) and swung the ball a couple of feet in to the right handers.
Denison top order looked like batsmen with good technique. Though they were still getting
used to the slow outfield, I am pretty sure they would've become dangerous when settled.
Pramod started out from the other end - bowled a few wides for a not too bad 2 overs. He
decided not to risk injury to his already hurting arm.
Meanwhile Vineel picked his third wicket, ball swinging in from out side the off stump to
take Chris' leg stump - a beauty!
Ravi Darbha & Venky came in as 1st & 2nd change bowlers. Both bowled well esp., Ravi bowled
beautifully to Kina and beat him several times before he got out trying hit his way out of
the trouble - Bharat taking a stinger at mid-wicket.
Meanwhile, topscorer leftie Sid was slowly getting into the groove. Murthy was way too short
and Sid punished him for a couple of boundaries. After 15 overs break, Murthy got his first
wicket (of his career w/ CCC). This time the ball was short but rose sharply to surprise
Diran - who holed out to Abhi.
Hisam and Sid (both left handers) then put on a good partnetship and threatened to take the
game away. Ravi Reddy lived up to his reputation against left-handers & got the first breakthrough.
After hitting him for a boundary, Hisam tried to repeat and was stumped by Ravi Mangipudi.
Sid was next to go, this time Ravi Mangipudi effecting a much better stumping off Bharat's bowling.
Very important breakthroughs which, in the end, helped Ravi M's case for joint MoM (with Vineel).
Kosike bowled some sharp deliveries and finally got an LBW in his favor.
Sahil, Tariq and Arif were trying hard to make one final push when Kosike got Sahil, Abhi
got Tariq and finally Vineel getting Arif Caught behind.
Denison tailenders did manage to score 35 runs for the last three wickets to get to a tough
but not impossible 16 runs off the final over. (we batted 12 so, they still had the 11th wkt in hand)
A boundary off the first ball of the last over got a few people anxious.
Last ball six runs needed! but it was pretty evident that the last pair did not have enough
in them to do what no other batsman has done that day - hit a sixer.
We did experiment a lot to try and give everybody a decent change at the same time try to
ensure a victory.
If only we can play all our games this relaxed - we will surely win a lot more.
We will surely do well with out all that pressure players put on themselves and all the
panicking that happens during the midwest games.