Middle order collapse costs entry into season finals
Match Report : IECC vs AQCC (Japan Cup T20) – Sunday 17th July,2016 by Pavethy
IECC’s dream to qualify for the Japan national T20 Cup was swept away as the game was tied between both teams. Sunday’s weather was as perfect as it could be asked for.
First Innings:
AQCC won the toss and elected to bat first. They unleashed their “N-Power” players Nilesh, Nikhil, Nandha, Naren and Nirmal. Nilesh gave them a good start at the top of the order only to see Kale shattering his stumps with a ripper and Rajneesh removed another opener Srinivas caught by Manu at long on. Vasanth and Nandha steadied their middle order and a timely run out by Abhishek Jain broke their partnership removing the dangerous Nandha. With Abhishek tightening the screws the run flow stopped and strangled the AQCC batsmen only to find themselves short of their creases, wanting for greedy runs. Vinay and kale each contributed a run out removing Naren and Nirmal respectively.
AQCC reeling for 88/7 in 17 overs, in came pinch-hitter Nikhil, the last of the N-Powered ones. He scored 32 off 18 balls hitting 4 sixes of Skipper Vinay’s bowling, 3 of which came in the final over. Considering 115/8 in 20 overs, a low score in T20 standards, the team got together quickly and started off the chase confidently.
Second Innings:
Openers Vinay and Anurag gave a solid and quick start against a quality bowling line up. Unfortunately, Anurag backed up too much to find himself out to a direct hit by Bakiyaraj from covers. Mr. Consistent Vinay too was out to an incoming delivery immediately after Anurag. Pavethy stranded and steadied himself on one end but to witness quality batsmen Dinesh, Kale and Adirit get out in quick succession for cheap runs.
In came the young wicket-keeper batsman Prashant Kumar, playing sensible cricket he kept the scorers busy. Pavethy and Prashant Kumar build a partnership during the middle overs and took the team to a decent score of 94 in 16 overs from the stage of 61/5. Pavethy hit two consecutive boundaries of Nandha’s over and got greedy only to find the fielder in covers. As per the cricket saying “One brings Two”, IECC were 94/6; 95/7 and 96/8. Prashant Kumar followed Pavethy soon after and was followed by Saif. With two new batsmen at the crease, Abhishek Jain and Manu B., AQCC’s top bowlers pounced on them with the final 4 crucial overs. The pair batted wisely, hitting occasional boundaries and taking quick 1s and 2s. They both brought the team closer to target.
The Last over Drama:
IECC needed only 6 runs of the last over with 2 wickets in hand. At the start of over mix-up between Abhishek Jain and Manu led to a run out . Manu sacrificed his wicket and Rajneesh came in. Calm and sensible batting made sure IECC required 1 run of last ball to win. When an experienced cricketer like Abhishek Jain is at middle, you are sure that nothing will go wrong..! AQCC captain brought all field inside 30 yard to stop any chance of single. With this field it was sure that bowler will try to bowl a Yorker and guess what he bowled low fulltoss which on nornal occasion could been hit out of ground. Batsmen were too rooted to thinking of not giving away wicket that he hit low full toss straight to short covers fielder and found himself run-out at non striker end. It was a tense and nail biting finish.
relive the Last over :
The positives out of this match:
Overall our Bowling unit was excellent with – Abhishek Jain & Kale taking 2 wickets each. Our team’s fielding was also fabulous effecting 3 run outs. As with the Batting Unit – Anurag top scored with a quick fire 24, Pavethy and Vinay chipped in with 21 and 13 respectively at the top order. The highlights were the performance of our new comers Abhishek Jain (10), Prashant Kumar (11), Manu B (8) and for the rest of the batting unit, the faux pas still continues.