Vinay’s Century and Anurag blitzkrieg enable Engineers to breeze past AGCC.

Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation.  in my case i wouldnt start the Report-writes saif  Raj

IECC 248 for 2 (Vinay 124, Kobayashi 73) beat  AGCC 58 for 10 (Kawasaki 20, Anurag 4ov – 6 – 6)  by 190 runs. Scorecard 

Firstly, let me welcome the debutants to IECC family – Adrit Jain, Masaomi Kobayashi and Prashant Kumar. All the best and hope you guys have a good time.

Nature was not turning out to be kind enough; there was persistent rain in the build up to the match. Strong winds blowing across the ground throughout the day also threatened to put off our first match of the season.

Our Captain, herein referred to as Vinay J lost  the Toss and AGCC invited us bat first. More than the opposition’s bowling arsenal, breezy conditions were going to be a bigger challenge. IECC openers cum captains (IECC and Japan team respectively) were watchful to begin with. Soon after, they opened up and the boundaries started to flow at will. Kobayashi’s stroke play was matched by Vinay’s drives and deft touch.

Bowling by Aoyama CC was below par to say the least but cannot blame them for the effort on the field. Fielding was up to the mark with some brilliant out fielding effort by AGCC. At a little over halfway stage both batsmen had crossed half centuries at a brisk rate. Kobayashi perished in search of quick runs for a well-made 73(45).

Vinay upped the ante and with some lusty blows with good support from Pavethy at the other end. Score reading 150 for 1 at 15 over mark and Vinay at 60. 16^th over yielded 20 runs; all coming from Vinay’s bat. I bet Vinay was not thinking what the whole team was thinking – a chance to score a century. From there on it was carnage, amazing display of stroke play by Vinay.

By 18^th over Vinay reached the land mark with boundary over midwicket as the entire team rose to applaud a stupendous effort.

IECC ending at a humongous 248 for 2 from 20 overs.

2^nd Innings:

     With all due respect to Aoyama G. CC the match was all but over.  AGCC was never going to chase down a mammoth total against the bowling might of IECC.Opening spell started by ever reliant Rajneesh and tear away spearhead Anurag. AGCC openers survived the first over unaware of what was going to hit them next.

Hit they were, by the pace, swing and aggression of Anurag who was in no mood to let go off the hard work and muscle built during the off season.

     The batsmen were on their toes while playing him (or not so) all the time.One ball whizzed past the ears and the other would rattle the stumps – It was the beginning of an end. Awesome display of fast and accurate bowling saw wickets being rattled 7 times in a span of first 8 overs. 6 of which snapped up by Anurag in a 4 over spell, all bowled. At the end of 8 overs, score read 27/7. AGCC all but finished even before it began.

     The last few wickets was going to be a formality for IECC and it was about going through the emotions for AGCC. IECC wrapping up the ACC innings with a professional and dominating performance. At the end IECC made light work of AGCC batting, gunning them all out for a meagre 58.

Match scorecard

Engineers massive score makes it 2-0

Apr 10, 2016 by Suresh G.V

After the “Prashant Storm” chased the target of 145 in the 1st match in just 11 overs, the batters were ready and loaded with fire with all guns blazing for the second match.

The second match was led by vice captain Anurag in the absence of our regular captain Vinay. Anurag did a very fine job in marshalling his troops well. The openers, Abdul  and Saif, right from the word “Go” were on a destructive mode. Abdul in particular was at his very best, scoring 44 of just 22 balls. Saif too contributed with a swift 38 off 26 balls. The opening partnership was broken in the 7th over and in came the man of the day, Prashant Kale, who had earlier taken the Rising Stars by storm. Kale started his innings where he had left off in the first match with complete dominance again scoring an  aggressive knock of 38 in just 18 balls.  Rest of the natters (PK, Bidyut, Suresh, Dinesh) continued their good work, and Vivek finished the innings with some fire power scoring 29 of 11 balls. The Engineers finished the game with a huge score of 225/6 in 20 overs. IECC Defending 225: The word discipline was perfect to describe our bowling unit. Rising Stars were in huge pressure with a humongous score to chase. Engineers started the proceedings with Dinesh & Prem.  Dinesh in his very 1st over got the important wicket of Sunny, which was supported by a very good catch from PK. I could say with that the hopes of Rising Stars were buried, and from there on no batter had answers for the engineers bowling attack. It was a complete dominant performance from engineers, Prem once again had produced a decent spell. By half way of RS innings, they were struggling at 23/3. Then came the spin duo of Bidyut and Manu and RS batters failed to pick the spin combo, Bidyut (2) and Manu (3) chipped in some quick wickets and the rest of the game was just a formality. Captain Anurag was very good in field placing and rotated his bowlers very well, bowled a very good spell too and the overall job was great. The hard fought hero Vivek bowled his heart out with very good pace and our man behind the wickets Prashanth Kumar had done an excellent job with gloves. Keep up the good work guys. Rising Stars could manage to reach only a paltry 82/8 in their 20 Overs, Engineers took the game by 143 Runs. Although we had lot of positives to take from the games played, there is always room for improvement.

Expertise come by repetition. let’s work hard until we make winning a habit.

Prashant Kale Steamrolls Rising Stars

Apr 10, 2016 by Anurag Singh. 

Kale Scored 117 of 44 deliveries.what was most striking was that his century came inside 10 overs which is in all likelihood is a record in Japan.

“They say cricket is a team game, but that’s not always the case” – Mystery man

Match 1

After a tense encounter in the T-20 World Cup, with India taking the game in a thrilling finish, P. Kale invited the Rising Stars to play a couple of friendly T-20s at Sano. Rising Stars gladly accepted the challenge and the was game on. Every one was wishing for close games, but Engineers’ batting line up (read Prashant) made sure that that was not the case. Engineers captain Vinay, offered the opposition to bat first, if they agreed to Engineers batting first in the second game. After that sweet deal was made, the game started with Anurag and Vivek opening the bowling, in absence of the regular (read older) pair of Biju and Rajneesh.

Bowling

Vivek playing his first game for the Engineers, bowled in good areas, with very good pace, despite the pot belly, which is a proof of the good time he had back home. Anurag was a bit wayward to begin with and allowed Rising Stars’ openers easy runs, with Sunny, the opener taking him for a couple of fours and a six. First change, Abdul got rid of the other opener straight-away in his first over, with Prashant Kumar pocketing the catch. This brought in Naimul at number 3, who was sent back by PK in the first over of his spell, with Vinay taking the catch. Sunny on the other end was riding all his luck and making sure Engineers paid the price every time it was bowled in the slot. He had a good partnership with Rajin (16) and Sayeed (18). After two overs from Abdul, Vinay took over for a two over spell, and took out Sunny in his first over to halt their march. Afterwards, Manu and Prem were brought on to bowl two over spells each. Prem bowled a good spell, bowling wicket to wicket, and taking out Mohibul in his first over. Vivek and Anurag finished the innings with some tidy overs to restrict the Rising Stars to 142 in their allotted 20 overs. The bowling effort from the Engineers was good, but it lacked control, and the ground fielding and catching let them down too many times. The keeping by Prashant Kumar was brilliant as always.

Batting

Chasing 143, Engineers started with Prashant Kale (referred to as Kale hereafter as we have two of them now 🙂 ) and Vinay. Kale was in no mood to take it slow, which is the case most of the times, and he started with a huge six off the second ball of the innings. On the other end, Vinay had a contrasting start, miscuing his second ball to offer a simple catch. This brought the younger Prashant to the crease who played very sensibly and kept rotating the strike, making sure Kale got to face as many deliveries as possible. Kale was in great touch and was making sure that anything that was in his zone was punished. It was just one of the days where his zone was pretty wide. All the bad deliveries and even the not so bad ones were dispatched to the boundary and he showed no love to any of the bowlers. Engineers had to dispatch two people on the boundary just to fetch the balls that were mostly landing outside the ground. He took a special liking to Rajin and Helal, with the former going for 37 in his 2 overs, and the latter going for 35 in his single over spell. Kale was in such good touch in the second half of the innings that he took only 15 deliveries to complete his second fifty and raced to 117 in a mere 44 deliveries.  It was a great knock and I hope he continues paying like this for the rest of the season.

What was most striking was that his century came inside the first 10 overs, which in all likelihood is a record in Japan.

Prashant Kumar also played a good supporting role and scored a run-a-ball 20. The game was completed in the 10.2 overs and it was a highly convincing win for the Engineers. [separator top=”10″ bottom=”20″ style=”shadow”]