Cedar Rapids Festival - 2 - Left it, left it!!

Here's a complete guide to the cast of characters and their nicknames. The cast will be updated as players are added or dropped or nicknames changed as the season progresses.

Following the successful defense of a total in the first match, NCC decided to shake things up for the second of the back-to-back matches in the tournament, this time against Cedar Rapids Challengers.

When Captain Ozone shakes things up, he starts with the toss. The latest sacrificial goat, err, nominee to toss it was Bob Loblaw. Bucking a season-long trend, Bob came back having won the toss! Ozone promptly decided to field.

The opposition got a taste of Energizer Bunny's outswinger in another 4 over spell that teased the batsmen no end. But the openers decided to take the attack to the bowlers at the other end where JaiGanesh, Mind It, and Kingsize Dada got to bowl one over spells. 6 overs into the innings, NCC had already tried 4 bowlers. With the openers throwing their bats at everything, the score was moving along merrily until one swing too many brought NCC back into the game when the opener slashed hard at Energizer (big mistake) and the resultant edge was taken neatly behind the stumps.

With that a steady stream of batsmen came and went, with small cameos to mark their spot in the roster. Tasmanian Devil once again probed away at the stumps, picking up a couple of bowleds, while Doctor Kamikaze and King Warney snaffled the remaining ones. Details of the dismissals are too ordinary to put down here; suffice to say that the batsmen contributed to their dismissal more than the bowlers did. There were a couple of easy catches dropped, one at square leg and another at deep midwicket, but that is par for the course with NCC. CRC ended up at 155 for 8 in their innings.

As is a tradition with this blog, here are some interesting facts while the teams take a quick break between innings.

• "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
• Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
• The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

Thin Man began the chase for NCC seemingly in a daze. The toll of being the primary run-getter and having to be on the field for back-to-back matches appeared to tell as he swung hammer and tongs at every ball, irrespective of where it was. He still managed to connect one or two, but his end seemed inevitable when it did.

TD took up the mantle of the scoring, hitting one delicious extra-cover drive for six in between some splendid upper cuts to rising deliveries. However, one upper cut too many found third man to scuttle a promising innings (yes, once again in the 20's). Kamikaze and Energizer Bunny tried to stem the tide and were going along well until Kamikaze's attempt to clear cover failed miserably. After that it was a procession for a while, until Energizer began to stamp his authority on the proceedings, while nurdling along the batsmen who were coming and going faster than a line of guests at a wedding reception. (I shall now hide my head in shame for having channeled Sidhuisms in my write-up).

Eventually, a tired Energizer failed to move his feet in time to a ball on the leg-stump and was bowled around his legs. Unwilling to give up, NCC took the game to the last out, and perished with just 13 runs to get in 9 balls. By ensuring that the margin of victory was not an imposing one they gave themselves a shot at entering the finals, at least on net run rate. As Fate would have it, Cedar Rapids Challengers won their second game, too, and NCC made it to the final as the 2nd placed team. Not quite the way Ozone would have wanted it, but satisfying in that NCC got a chance to square up against the team that they lost to.

The final was played the following weekend, and you will have to wait for the next report to find out what happened that day.