Cricket in the 'Burgh - part 12: Justice is served

The opinions expressed in this post are solely that of the author who, on occasion, had an out-of-body experience and was able to watch himself play.

Also, in order to keep some suspense about the 2007 season, when I provide a link to a player's page I shall link to his 2006 stats.

Game 8: WVUCC versus Blitzers

Along with the Steelzags, the Blitzers provide WVUCC with the most enjoyable on-field experiences. There is a great deal of chatter that goes on, friendly banter that brings lots of smiles to everyone. In 2006, the Blitzers were unable to beat the 'Eers, losing close matches both times.

Sohail Chaudhry once again won the toss and elected to bat. C.S. Manish began the match in sensational fashion hooking two of the first three balls bowled by Rajat Grover for sixes, easily clearing the tree by the pavilion with the second one. However, at the other end Ferdinand "Ferdie" Justus exacted revenge by tying down both openers with some sharp seam bowling. Ferdie is an enigma, a smiling, effervescent player with a Shoaib Akhtar-esque penchant for bowling two good overs with a mean streak and then quickly getting tired. But those two overs he bowls are as good as any bowled by the top bowlers in the league. In his second over, he sliced Manish almost in half with a sharp incutter and even as the umpire indicated not out, the batsman walked, indicating that he had nicked to the keeper.

Emboldened by the atypically aggressive start provided by Manish, the rest of the top order came in and attacked the ball from the get-go. The top 6 batsmen all scored at least 13 runs, getting starts, but no one really managed to sustain it for long. The Blitzers, Ferdie excepted, are honest toilers at best, trundling along at medium pace or less with a stump to stump line. On this day, they contained the Mountaineers without threatening to ever run through the line up. Arvind Thiruvengadam survived a few close Ferdie-induced calls to stitch together his highest personal score, falling just short of the half-century mark just when an increase in tempo was required. (Luckily for the 'Eers this innings marked the start of a purple patch even as Abishek Muralidharan and Sohail went into a batting slump of sorts).

A Sumanth Dommaraju cameo towards the close pushed the score past the 150 mark to finish at 167 for 7 in 25 overs - competitive but definitely not nearly enough on this ground.

The Blitzers innings would depend upon the fate of two of their main batsmen - Raj Gopal and Ferdie (yes, the dude can bat, too). Raj Gopal was the most feared Blitzers batsman in the 2006 season, with a pleasing array of straight drives and punches in the off-side. In 2007, he astonishingly regressed, displaying remarkable impatience for a batsman used to making big scores. The book on him is simple; spread the field, cut off his boundaries, leave a huge gap at square-leg and invite him to attempt a cross-batted hoick to the vacant region. Sure enough, a series of balls that did not fetch runs forced Raj to attempt an ugly heave and he only managed to snick it to the keeper. Unfortunately, Raj's attempts to extricate himself from his slump through the rest of the season did not succeed and I only hope that in the off-season he will think about his failings and focus on not throwing his wicket away when the runs do not flow easily. He would do well to watch Sohail or Naveen Peiris bat to learn how to wait for the bad balls to come along.

Before that, Sheeley Rajamony had given Ashok Varadarajan, the keeper, an even easier catch and the Mountaineers sniffed a chance to put the game away. But Ravi Vishwanathan, the grizzled veteran (why he did not open in 2007 for the Blitzers is beyond my comprehension) eased the tension by playing out the tough period, with Elanchezhian Mahendran for company. Slowly, but surely, they began easing the runs and Sohail spread the field to induce a mistake. Sure enough Elan fell in the trap, caught at the square-leg boundary. And when Ravi misread a straighter one from Thilanka Munasinghe the 'Eers were one wicket away from pulling out the game. Standing between them and the wicket was the stocky (ahem) Ferdie. Ferdie then showed Raj (and the others) how it was done. He scored 38 runs in 7 balls (5 sixes and 2 fours) and nudged and pushed for 15 runs in the remaining 31 balls. At the other end, Balaji Kannan, duplicated Ferdie scoring 20 runs (2 sixes, 2 fours) in 4 balls and 6 runs in the remaining 22. Unfortunately for the Blitzers, Balaji got excited with victory in sight and got out trying to hit another six. However, Ferdie ensured no more hiccups occurred along the way calmly finishing the match for his team, remaining unbeaten on a well-made 53.

With this loss, the 'Eers fell to 5-3 and next up were the Strikers...surely an easy win was in the offing against the only winless team in the league, or was it as simple as that?