Saturday, August 24, 2019

The Midwest Chronicles - Hefflinger Cup 2019: Staring into the abyss

The Cricket Association of Nebraska (CAN) and Simply Play Cricket (SPC) co-hosted the 2019 Invitational Hefflinger Cup in August 2019. Nine teams were divided into three groups with the top 4 teams making the knockout. Here are the exploits of the Nebraska Cricket Club (NCC).

2019 Invitational Hefflinger Cup
Group C game: Nebraska Cricket Club versus Titans
Venue: Hefflinger Park, North ground, Omaha, Nebraska

Nebraska CC Players: Anoop Reddy, Ashish Sathyan, Asif Iqbal, C S Manish (wk), Dikshant Saini, Mojib Afghan, Phillip Blake, Saumil Patel, Sriram Surapaneni, Suresh Gorantla (C), Vijay Reddy

Titans Players: Abdul Khaliq Shaik (wk), Akash Vemulapalli, Amarendra Dasari, Avinash Gurram, Hiren Tummala (C), Jithin Pavuluri, Ravi Teja Gadde, Rohit Kashyap, Sampras Manpoor, Sandeep Reddy Palle, Vishnu Gude

Overnight showers had left behind a damp carpet and the NCC captain, Suresh Gorantla, had no hesitation in asking Titans to bat first. Ashish Sathyan, trundling in off a shortened run-up took his time getting his radar organized, with 4 wides in the first 3 balls. His third legitimate ball was the stuff of which fast bowler's dreams are made, a rapidly climbing delivery that forced the batsman to flinch and turn away, resulting in a simple, loopy catch next to the square-leg umpire. Practice catches don't come easier than that and Suresh Gorantla made no mistake.

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