Cricket in the 'Burgh - part 13: Escape to victory

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 9: WVUCC versus Strikers

The first game of the season between the 'Eers and Strikers was over in a jiffy, with the Strikers not even getting a whiff of a chance. In the return game, the proud remnants of the once-powerhouse team promised to not go down without a fight.

After winning the toss they could not have had a more disastrous start, though. Two balls into the innings, Shailesh Bokil was unable to keep down his favourite shot and gave Sumanth Dommaraju, at point, an easy catch in Rajesh Penmetsa's first over on debut. In the next over, Tony Edmonstone, who chose to bat without any helmet, stretched forward and the ball jagged up and smashed into his nose, breaking it. Tony took no further part in the game but the tone for an apprehensive batting performance for the rest of the day was set. Batsman after batsman came to the crease, hesitantly put his front foot forward and paid the price for his timidity. Only Sanjeev Singh, with a composed innings, looked like he was willing to watch the ball, but his partners were in a rush to get out of the way of the bowling, throwing wickets with reckless abandon.

But at 106 for 5, with Sanjeev Singh still at the crease, the Strikers had a chance to put up a decent total. In came Sohail Chaudhry and Arvind Thiruvengadam. A combined spell of 4.1 overs, 1 maiden, 6 wickets for 13 runs scuttled all hopes in sensational fashion! From 106 for 5, the Strikers collapsed to 108 all out.

Sanjeev Singh had watched his batting partners come and go, unwilling to bat it out with him. Unfortunately for the Mountaineer batsmen, he took his anger out on them. In the last year or so, Sanjeev has lost more than a yard or two of pace, becoming a military medium pacer (a la Madan Lal). On this day, he reached back into his heydey and produced a spell of sustained pace bowling that had the top order hopping for cover.

If the Mountaineers thought that the Strikers start to their innings was disastrous, they had no idea what was in store for them, courtesy Sanjeev. The slide started when C.S. Manish was caught plumb in front of the middle stump off the second ball of the innings, the ball hurrying onto his pads before the opener had even brought his bat down. The very next ball cleaned up Abishek Muralidharan, crashing into his stumps even as Abishek was caught at the crease staring at the spot where the ball had bounced. But the biggest fish was yet to be caught. Sanjeev finished off his first over with his third and most important wicket, finding the stumps off Sohail's pads. 2 runs for 3 wickets in 1 over. Trouble was brewing...

Things got worse when Sanjeev charged in, first smashing through Arvind Thiruvengadam's defences (12 for 4), and then Sumanth Dommaraju's (23 for 5). Ashok tried to hit his way out of the jam but in the next over, Dhiraj Raikhelkar joined the party, trapping him palpably in front of the stumps, LBW for 10, inclusive of 2 fours (23 for 6). WVUCC were in dire straits and Sanjeev still had two overs to go!!

Abhijit Bhagavatula and Amol Bhavsar then sensibly played out Sanjeev's remaining overs. Abhijit, flush with confidence from his recent successes, carefully put his front foot well forward and negated any chance of an LBW or clean bowled. At the other end, Amol reined his attacking instincts to play the best innings of his WVUCC career. Sanjeev Singh finished his outstanding spell (5 overs, 11 runs, 5 wickets) to a standing ovation from both teams, but he had been unable to breach the last recognized pair and he knew that the 'Eers may have just slipped from his grasp.

Abhijit and Amol then proceeded to shut the Strikers out of the game with a controlled partnership, not taking any risks whatsoever, and hitting the bad balls when they came by. The fact that the target was not large helped as they had lots of time on their hands. So much so that as the score started building up Sohail signalled to Amol to take a few risks in an attempt to get the bonus point (for reaching the target in less than 20 overs). Amol proceeded to do just that with three fours and a six in the mid-wicket to square-leg area. He perished with the score on 84 for a fantastic 30 in 27 balls (if you remove his boundary hits, he scored 12 runs in 23 balls, just what the doctor ordered, as Ravi Shastri would say).

Harshesh Patel ensured that no further mishaps would occur, keeping Abhijit company while the middle-order hero calmly struck a slew of boundaries to take WVUCC to victory in 18.1 overs. Abhijit remained not out on 28 in 42 balls (4 fours). If you remove his boundary hits, he scored 12 runs in 38 balls, showing remarkable maturity and calmness, especially in the way he blunted Sanjeev's spell.

Even though the Mountaineers got out of jail, the day belonged to Sanjeev Singh. If he had received even a semblance of support from the other end he may have even pulled out the victory, but it was not to be.

With this win, the 'Eers record improved to 6-3 and next up were the Gladiators, a team that WVUCC certainly had the measure of and were hoping to get maximum possible points from.