Engineers add one more to the list of losses

By Partha Sarathi

The friendly match against Myoden was scheduled on 21st Oct. The Diwali Day. The match started at 10 in the morning, 30 minutes late than the scheduled time. Both the team had 10 players each. After the Engineers were left rudderless for the past few months with the non-availability regular officials and and the stand-in captain, Bikash, withdrew himself from the match the day before the match, the heavy responsibility of turning the Engineers’ losing track fell on the next available choice, Biju. After winning the toss of the coin, Myoden elected to bat first.

    Biju set the field and the openers of Myoden were on their way to the field when suddenly it was realised that you need to have 2 sets of stumps on both ends to play cricket! A fielder was sent to the pavilion to fetch one set of stumps while Biju himself disappeared into the jungle of the Edogawa river bank to prepare some make-shift stumps for the bowler’s end. The thin sticks, just about the size of the sticks school masters use back home, less to scare the pupils and more to use it actually, were put up at the bowler’s end with the support of huge stones collected from the river. Innovation at tit best! went toweren’t set up.Biju and Sangan opened the bowling and kept the openers calm and also produces couple of chances. Myoden ring-in opener Graem was clean bolwed by Sangan in his first over and Biju trapped Karthik, Gream’s replacement, in front of the stumps in his second over. Myoden was 11 for 2 after 4 overs. The opening bowlers did a good job of containg the Myoden in their spell, giving away only 15 runs after their opening spell of 3 overs each. After the loss of two quick wickets, Kedar and Sagar put up a solid partnership of 97 runs. They were batting quite comfortably and the Engineeers’ bowlers couldn’t capitalize on the good start that Sangan and Biju gave. Loose bowling aided by poor take behind the wicket made the batsmen’s task easy. The dismissal of Sagar, brought Myoden captain Vezly to pair with Kedar. They kept scoring easily with lots of singles and occasionally clearing the boundary. Kedar was tired and was not able to steal the fast singles which upset his captain, who did not conceal his displeasure. They put up a 120 partnership. Biju tried all his options, but nothing worked out. Biju, brought himself in the attack, only to see his initial excellent bowling figures going for a toss. After yielding only on 7 runs in return for a wicket in his first 3 overs, his next second spell of 3 overs went for 30 runs while Sangan maintained his good show in his second spell as well. At last Biju tried the debutant, Anuraag Singh, the 19-year old rookie. Although he went for a few runs, his raw pace surprised everyone.  He bowled with good pace and kept the ball in place. In the end Myoden set a target of 234 to win. Partha and Anil opened the inning for the Engineers. The asking rate was very high 6.68 per over. To chase such a big total, one needed a good start. But, it turned out to be worst, when Partha was dismissed in the very first ball, given out LBW. Anil(38), put a good show and was playing freely, mainly concentrating on singles and doubles. No other batter could stay long and the Engineers reduced to 64 for 4 after 14 overs. Sangan and Anil put up a 41 run partnership. Towards the end of the innings, new blood Anuraag(35*) and the old fox Santosh(35*) started freeing their arms and hit the ball hard often clearing the rope. The Myoden bowlers didn’t have any answer to rampaging Anuraag and Santosh. But, there were not many overs to win the match. Eventually they put up a unbroken partnership of 70 runs but that could not help the Engineers. The scoreboard read 188 for 6 after 35 overs. One more defeat for the Engineers, which is not hard to digest these days. It was a friendly match and none of the teams had all their key players. But, still, some points must be noted. The Engineers conceded too many extras, 77 (45 wides, 32 byes/legbyes) while Myoden bowled 32 wides and 1 bye. That was the difference between the two teams. Nothing went in the Engineers’ way, but there is one good aspect. The match saw rise of a teenager who could be a valuable asset for the team. And of course, the Engineers their full quota of overs.

Brief scores: Myoden 233/4(35 ov). Kedar 50*, Sagar 50, Vezly 51 IECC 188/6(35 ov). Anil 38, S Ghadge 35*, A Sing 35*

Post record 9th loss of the season

By Sanjeeb Sahoo

     Alhough Biju managed to put together 10 names for the team, on the match day we only had 9 players, 3 of them being debutants and new prospects for the next season. In absence of captain, vice captain and assistant vice captain, Biaksh Mohanty, the next in line of the throne,  was handed over the difficult task of turning the fortune of the Engineers, who has until the day posted a record 8 losses, around. This makes me wonder if it is at all possible to have a more regular captain. Looking couple of years back, there was hardly any need of a vice captain.8 of us left Tokyo around 8:30 AM but due to huge traffic on Tomei we reached Shizouka around 12:30PM. Sandeep Balaji had made the wise choice to use the train and was the only Engineer to reach ground in time. Number of overs were reduced to 30, drinks and lunch breaks were cancelled.

The Batting

Stand-in skipper Bikash won the toss and decided to have the first use of the just rolled out flicx. Anil and Sangan opened the batting and did well to survive a hostile opening spell from Sharpe and a more friendly Chamberlain. But attempting a misjudged 2nd run, Sangan got run out on the last ball of the 8th over. By that time he has scored a solid(!) 12 and was looking good for many more. Sanjeeb walked back as soon as he walked in, attempting his favourite leg glance, ball hitting the edge of the bat and looped in the air towards the bowler, where Nick made no mistake hanging on to a simple catch. Udayaraj was the next man in and started batting in his natural aggressive style. Runs were coming easily at that point, but soon misfortune struck the Engineers. Another run out , and Anil was on the receiving end this time. Raju went in and was welcomed by a hostile over from Ashley. Ryan was also bowling well from the other end and Raju eventually edged one to the keeper. Bikash was next man in and it was immediately apparent that he was out of game for couple of months, but was lucky to survive several close calls. Raj on the other end continued to play aggressive and eventually miss hit a short pitched delivery from Ryan, and a simple catch was taken at midwicket. Nitin Dafraik walked in and after a shaky start gathered confidence and played confidently for rest of his innings. Bikash and Nitin partnered well to see us past 100, both hitting couple of good boundaries in the process. However Bikash’s luck finally ran out as he edged an swinging Ashley delivery to the keeper. At this point Kytes skipper Neil showed the magnitude of his magnanimity by letting any two batsmen to bat again to compensate for the two missing batsmen in the lineup. Sanjeeb and Raju were chosen and were advised to go for big hits. Knowing that there are 3 more wickets to follow, Nitin tried to accelerate the score and hit few boundaries before getting out LBW to Ashley. Sandeep followed and hit a superb straight drive, but only to see a superb return catch taken by the bowler Shoaib, who normally drops simpler chances. Bad luck Sandeep! Sanjeeb went in again and was standing at the bowler’s end only to witness Jayesh getting out LBW. Raju went in and was lucky to be still standing at the end of that over. Sanjeeb on the other end went for the big hits and got bowled after hitting couple of boundaries. The Engineer ended up with 148, extras being the top scorer followed by Raj and Nitin. Thanks Neil for the gesture.

Bowling

Sangan and Raju opened the bowling attack for us. Offside was packed with 5 fielders while only 2 fielders servicing the leg side. Both opening bowlers bowled controlled deliveries with pace and swing, but Sharpe and Chamberlain made good use of their feet to hit boundaries at will. Also lack of fielders meant that any ball on the leg side is asking for trouble, also it meant several catching chances being dropped. In several occasions Sangan caused much trouble for both batsmen, and was finally rewarded with Chamberlain’s wicket, who had to walk to a controversial LBW decision. After that, no more wickets came the Engineer’s way for very a long time. Sharpe and Ashley had a good partnership and Sharpe, as usual, was severe on all the bowlers. Finally Raju had Ashley, caught at long on, and Sandeep bowled Sharpe out on 61 , but by that time Kytes were already in a position from which they could not loose. Sandeep in his next over had Prelis caught at mid off ,thanks to a good jumping catch by Sanjeeb. Jayesh got Ryan bowled in the next over and in the process showed some good potential as a bowling talent. Nick came in next, and made sure that Kytes are home safely without loosing any more wickets. Afterwards we joined Kytes for a drink at the Kytes home restaurant, and had some good discussion about some key points of the game. Nick Shannon, as usual, was at his best at the drinking session and named Bikash, Cat and fed him fish. The way back was also packed with traffic and we managed to reach Tokyo around 11PM. This was record 9th loss for us in this season and the team think tank must do some brain storming to pull the team out of this new low.

Brief scores: IECC 148(27.3 ov). Udayaraj 24, A Harvey 3/22 S Kytes 149/5(20 ov). M Sharpe 62, A Harvey 34