This was our first away game for this season. I will quote Ono’s mini match report first and then add my notes later.

Ono:

We went into this game with a lot of uncertainties. First of all we did not know if the game is going to happen, we did not have a full quota of bowlers, the pitch was weird (reminded me of the Grafton field) and our confidence was at all time low after the series of losses starting the season. Last week’s loss was particularly painful.

Given all these uncertainties, we still came out winning the game. Kudos to everyone in team because everyone played their part and showed great positive energy from the first ball. The batsmen continuously paced their innings and the team innings to make sure we were at a good foundation at the 17 over mark without a loss of many wickets. This helped the final over bursts to reach 100. We started our bowling by taking a wicket in the first over and from that point on we made sure the pressure was continuously on by taking regular wickets. Catches were held and extra runs were mostly avoided. The main bowlers and the fielders worked around the part time bowlers to provide the right amount of support and help them get through the remaining overs. Overall, a great win by the whole team.

The first thing we realized when we stepped on the field was, the boundaries were really short. We knew our bowlers had to bowl with pinpoint precision in order to not give away easy boundaries. Rahul said they had at least two good all rounders who we needed to keep in check. We won the toss and decided to bat first since chasing was a recent nightmare from the previous week’s game. Ashish and Raghu opened and the plan was to keep it busy with singles. Uncertain bounce on a slightly damp field did Raghu in while Ashish was still going busy at the other end. Anuj came in for Raghu and looked to be in his own zone. On some occasions he was going for his shots and getting beaten but he stuck to his natural game and that paid good dividends. I had no doubt his MPL stock was going to rise even further (and it did, he was the most expensive buy at the auction). Ashish got out paving way to Ono and Sandeep who came in and gave Anuj some company. We were scoring at maybe 4-5 an over but were still missing that punch to get us a score above 100. Rahul came in and muscled two huge sixes to give us exactly that. He got out and Suresh came in and hit another six off the first ball he faced and we ended up with a good score of 107(?). For our bowling, we were still uncertain whether it was a good score since the boundaries were so short. Swarooph and Suresh opened the bowling. Swarooph took 2 wickets in 2 overs and had the batting side on the back foot right from the get go. In came their two main players. GK was called upon next and it looked like one of the players was trying to target him. He took up the challenge and even got his wicket with a great over. Rahul came in to bowl and was struggling with his line initially. In the middle overs, we had let the opposing team somewhat get back into the game despite having them 5 or 6 down. But with an ‘incredible’ spirit and effort Rahul found his line and length back and was effective in his later overs. Suresh took 2 wickets in 2 balls in his last over and the match was almost over. We did have some concerns for our fifth bowler. We really did not have a true fifth bowler. We gave Anuj a go hoping his golden touch with the bat will help with the ball as well. This did not go according to the plan entirely with some extras and short balls. Anuj was a little under the pressure knowing the circumstances of the fifth bowler. We calmed him down and asked him to kiss (keep it simple stupid!). He finished that over strong. We then called Chaitanya to lend his services and he delivered 2(?) overs beautifully even got one (?) wicket. In the end, we were on the winning side because good solid batting and great execution while bowling. Special mention goes to the fielders on the boundaries. They were dormant for the most part but were quick to throw in their fielding efforts and grab on to catches with good concentration (Anoop). If at all we were beaten in one department, it was cheering. The opposing team had one girl cheering them through the entirety of the match even if her side was 9 down and going to lose.

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We played in Wrentham, home ground for our Eagles sponsored Mathworks MSCL team. We won the toss and decided to bat since it worked well last game. Nachiket and Ashish opened and the idea was to keep it busy with single, double, single, double [sic, quote from last week match]. We were busy right off the first ball and kept it going with a target if 20 in 5 overs. We beat it and in the meanwhile lost Ashish to some miscommunication during the awesome running between the wickets. Pritish went in next and showed some aggressiveness before getting out. Priyank joined Nachi and kept the Incredibles, sorry, MCC 1 going well. Priyank got caught behind and Amol went in. He had a streaky innings with a bunch of dropped catches but mistimed a ball to get caught on the offside. Kaushik went in and was caught off a mistimed shot as well (?). Suddenly we had lost 3 wickets in a considerably short time so we wanted a good partnership since Nachiket was going strong. Nachi discarded loose balls with disdain and nothing seemed to trouble him. Enter Onomitra. He played a good innings mostly thanks to captain Rahul urging him to go for shots (to Ono’s annoyance). They finished the innings well with two double digit run overs and ended up with 117. Ono had 18*(23) and Nachi 62*(54). Our bowling plan was simple. We wanted to avoid short balls (info was that the opposing team had good muscle and will go for their shots) at all cost and try to not give easy singles (which was our strength during our batting). Swarooph and Kaushik opened the bowling. They bowled two overs each and after giving away some streaky singles had already the side down 3-4 wickets. Sureshwar and Rahul came in next and kept it tight and kept pegging wickets away. Amol joined the bowling party and showed his bowling form to the Avengers captain Ankit who took the WK duties after Ono pulled something when going for a reaction catch. We knew we had the habit of letting teams come back in after a strong bowling start so, we kept our focus and finished the job to get a good victory. P.S: Nachi continued his form and scored ~25* to win the afternoon Eagles game as well. So he needs >10 runs in the repeat of last year’s final in MPL to score a 100 for this week.

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