Winning streak comes to an end

By Biju Paul

160 off 30 overs is not hard for the Engineers to achieve, given their current form. Alas! That was not to be the case when they played against the Lala on Sunday, September 30. Their innings, uncharacteristically, folded up for 60 off 17 overs. The Lala, whom the Engineers had defeated two months ago, thus had a sweet revenge.

After arriving late at the ground and then winning the toss, Lala captain Aslam had no hesitation to elect to bat first. Although Ashok Kumar was able to provide a break-through for the Engineers in the 4th over of the match by clean bowling the opener, Lala progressed steadily, thanks to 5 dropped catches and then some loose bowling by this correspondent and Sanjeed Sahoo, conceding 50 runs in 4 overs between them.

For the Engineers, Santosh Ghadge was outstanding claiming 3 wickets in a 4 over spell while conceding only 9 runs. An apt reward for a man who really worked hard for it. Well done, Santosh. The other notable contribution towards the fag end of the match came from Dinesh Tashildar who claimed 2 wickets in two overs while conceding only 4 runs. Lala 159 all out in 29.2 overs.

The late arrival didn’t deter the Lala captain to ask his opposite number to start their innings after a 10 minutes innings break. The reason: A marriage to attend! In the hurry to make their opposition attend their marriage the Engineers started gifting their wickets away. While 6 of them collected valuable ‘ducks’, Balu as usual provided some entertainment with a stroke filled knock of 37. None of the other batmen reached the double figure. The Engineers’ innings came to a tame end when the last man Ashok Kumar was stumped off Sheikh with the score at 60.

One more victory for the Engineers

By Sriram Sampath

On what was a fine day for cricket YCAC won the toss and were more than glad to bat first. It seemed a tougher match to chase for  IECC with the inclusion of four big names from other clubs, Aamir , Mumtaz and Imran. However superb initial spell from Ashok Kumar and Rahul Kumar saw the opponents reeling at 15/3 . The ball from Ashok to clean bowl Mark Ferris was a definite beauty. Dropped catches and loose bowling by the Engineers from then on saw Kamran and Avinash take score to 97/3 in 17 overs. Santosh Ghadge came in with good spell in middle to give us a breakthrough although the YCAC had started opening up their innings by then. Good stroke play by Aamir and Mumtaz who scored nearly 45 each saw the target move up to 212. It was a good fight in the end to restrict them there!

Bowling figures as follows:

Ashok K  8 – 2 – 32 – 2 Rahul     8 – 1 – 32 – 4 Santosh   4 – 0 – 22 – 1 A Sharma 7 – 0 – 40 – 0

Our batting began with sound start from the openers – Prasad Poppully and Bhibas Roy who kept the run rate going. Bhibas was out early and was replaced by Balu who looked in good form. Prasad scored a valuable 21 before getting out LBW . Vishwa Ghosh then took over for another good partnership with good stroke play before out loosely playing an over pitched ball . However the launching pad needed for a victory had by then been established. Balu and myself made merry on what was a great day for both of us and ended the match with 4.1 overs to spare!

Scorecard:

Prasad – 21 Bibhas – 6 Vishwa – 17 Balu – 67 Sriram – 77 Extras – 15