Main Umpire: Shashi Desai Leg Umpire: Pankaj Patel
This report is written by Saidapet Ramesh of QCCC
It had rained till friday afternoon since monday morning of that week and hence
the reedy creek pitch turned out to be very damp when it was inspected by the
QCCC members on saturday afternoon. Hence, they started working with Mr.Parvesh
of MCC on redoing the pitch from saturday afternoon to extarct some kind of
bounce from the damp pitch. They left the pitch to dry till sunday morning and
came early on sunday to roll the FLICX pitch on top of the redone pitch. It
turned out to be a bright sunny day, perfect for the clash between two new teams
of the MACC league - QCCC and COCC!
Since the pitch was redone a day before, nobody knew how it was going to behave
and hence the toss was going to be really crucial. COCC captain won the toss and
asked QCCC to bat first. QCCC openers siddharth and saurabh(captain) decided to
have a good feel of the pitch before they could get after the bowlers. There was
enough bounce in the pitch with the new ball and siddharth started hitting the
opening bowlers of COCC all over the park while saurabh kept rotating the strike
at the other end. It was really shocking to see no field changes by the COCC
bowlers even after QCCC reached 50 for no loss in just 7.2 overs and siddharth
looked in dazzling form. After some big hitting, siddharth tried to hit a
straight ball right across the line and found himself plumb in front of the
wicket when the score was 68 in 9.2 overs. Soon QCCC was in deep trouble after
it lost 2 quick wickets of saravana and satish both being runouts when the score
was at 98 in 15.3 overs. Now it was upto ramesh and saurabh to rebuild the
innings.
With a new batsmen at the crease, the columbia bowlers bowled a very tight line
and stopped the flow of runs. A slow and steady partnership was building up in
the middle with saurabh scoring fluently and reaching his fifty in the 22nd over
while ramesh was batting cautiously at the other end. Ramesh got out to a very
poor shot when he tried to get after the bowling in the 25th over and left the
score at 143 for 4 wickets. Very soon, saurabh found himself back in the
pavilion after losing his stumps when he tried to slog the columbia bowlers in
the end overs. But he had already played a captains knock of 65 for his team.
The lower order batsmen managed to put up 20 runs in the last 5 overs to leave
the final score of QCCC at 163 for 8 in the alotted 30 overs. QCCC was well
short of 15-20 runs from the projected score after 15 overs at the end of the
innings. The columbia bowlers vivek and raju deserve a lot of credit for some
tight bowling in the middle overs to pull back the!
run rate of QCCC. I would also like to give a lot of credit to Mr.Karim, the
wicket keeper of COCC for his excellent peice of keeping behind the wickets.
A target of over 160 at reedy creek was always going to be challenging. But COCC
soon found itself in a lot of trouble when saravana had COCC opener karim right
in front of the wickets in the first ball of the innings. Saravana took 2 more
quick wickets to leave COCC stumbling at 15 for 3 in 2.3 overs. Ramesh was
bowling a very tight line at the other end keeping up the pressure on the COCC
batsmen. Now, it was upto COCC batsmen raju and vinod to steady the innings and
come back into the match. Raju looked very comfortable in the middle and was
scoring easily with some good support from the other end from vinod. Raju played
some flamboyant shots and the best one came when he lofted saravana for a huge
six straight down the wicket.
Captain saurabh made the bowling changes by bringing himself and sandip in to
replace saravana and ramesh. Soon,sandip had vinod caught behind and later took
a return catch from JD to leave columbia struggling at 46 for 5. The match was
virtually over when saurabh clean bowled raju with a quick incoming delivery
when the score was at 53. The ball was keeping low on a consistent basis and it
was matter of finishing the match for QCCC bowlers. Saurabh and sandip got rid
of the remaining columbia batsmen to bowl out COCC for 72 runs. Saravana and
saurabh had 3 wickets each while sandip ended up with 4 well deserved wickets.
QCCC players could not expect a better way to start their 2003 season in MACC
league. They beat COCC by 92 runs in their first ever match of MACC league. The
match turned out to be a good one and all the players of QCCC and COCC played
with a sportive spirit and enjoyed the game. Special thanks to shashi and Pk of
CLCC for their outstanding and consistent umpiring throughout the match. In my
opinion, both the umpires never gave a wrong decision even when it came to
giving wides on the leg side.
The man of the match was captain saurabh of QCCC for his solid 65 with the bat
and bowling figures of 16 for 3 from 5 overs!