Dinesh Singh scores his maiden century
By Sanjeeb Sahoo
In a fantastic all round display we managed to beat YC&C in an exciting high scoring game. Engineers captain Sanjeeb called the toss right this time and elected to bat first. Bobby was promoted to open with Santosh in the absence of regular openers. YC&AC got 2 quick breakthroughs via run outs, Santosh in the 2nd over misjudged a direct throw and then in the 6th over Bobby sacrificed his wicket for Dinesh in a terrible mix up. Bobby’s sacrifice did not go waste though as Dinesh went on to score a fantastic century. Sanjeeb and Dinesh steadied the innings for the 3rd wicket and added about 70 runs, Dinesh doing bulk of the scoring. Then Vezly and Dinesh for the 5th wicket added 115 runs to put the Engineers on top. Towards the end a blistering 51 not-out, including a last ball 6 from Anurag, took the Engineers past 300. Chasing a mammoth total YC&AC started in a steady fashion.
Good pace bowling by Ashok and Mohan meant that they had to take risks to meet the asking rate. Ashok got through Nick’s defense in his 3rd over to give the Engineers the much needed quick breakthrough. Steve and Mark batted well and put up 50 runs for the 2nd wicket. The game was on balance at that point. But a brilliant fielding at point by Santosh ran Mark out and the momentum started swinging towards the Engineers. Then a good catch at cover by Ashok got rid of the dangerous looking Steve to put the Engineers on top, Anurag being the bowler in this case. Prashant(59) and Farhan(26) batted well for some time and gave the Engineers some anxious moments but the growing asking rate got the better of both batsmen. Anurag took a superb catch at long-on to get rid of Farhan and Vezley bowled a beautiful yorker to knock Prashant’s middle stump out of the ground. Once Prashant was out it was just a matter of time before the Engineers became victorious. Vezly bowling his 7th over got rid of the 9 and 10th wicket in 2 consecutive deliveries to get YCAC all out within the 40 over.
It was a disciplined effort at the field by us, we took some fantastic catches, caused run outs. Even though we dropped some catches was still a far better performance than the previous outing against the same opposition. I must mention that Anurag and Sagar took two outstanding catches while yours truly dropped a simple one ;). In the end we had a drink with YCAC and thanked them for inviting us to play in their fantastic facility, and wished well to Neil who was playing his penultimate game in Japan and the last one against the Engineers. We then marched home with the satisfaction of beating YCAC which had remained as a dream for few years now.
Brief scores: IECC 302/6 (40 overs).
Dinesh Singh 114(14×4, 3X6), Anurag Singh 51 (7X4, 2X6), Vezly Gracies 43(5X4, 1X6),
Prashant Kale 3/49.
YC&AC 237/10 (37 overs). Prahsnat Kale 59, Cmitha 40*, Vezly Gracies 4/35.