Engineers continue their dream ride
A brilliant performance is what it can be called. Mind everyone – the hunted are now the hunters. The best way sportsmen speak is through their performance on the field. And did we speak!!!!!
For the record minded. The Edogawa Falcons were bowled out in under 20 overs for 121 and we made the runs with tons of overs to spare with 7 wickets in hand. The bowling was very aggressive and credit does go to Sheikh for trying to attack his way back. But, the sustained hostility of the opening spell of Ashok Sr. and Rahul saw 2 wickets fall for 39 runs in 4 overs – most of the runs being scored due to the adventurism of Sheikh. The first change bowlers Ashok Jr. and Rajat bowled tight and kept the pressure on by taking wickets. But the lack of Stamina did show up when both Rajat and Ashok Jr. were taken for runs in the last over of their first spell. The fielding supported the bowling well with a lightening quick stop by Bibhas and direct hits on the stumps by 3 others being the stand outs. One of them was contentiously not given out. So, at drinks, which was taken after 16 overs, Pakistan was 90 for 5 and firmly with their backs to the wall.
Post Drinks saw inspired bowling by Santosh when he bowled one hostile over. In a terrible mix up one Falcon who was playing well succumbed to good fielding by Bibhas who relayed the Ball to Sunil who kept his cool and relayed it to the bowler for a simple run out. It does reflect a lot on the mental toughness building up.
So, Ashok Sr. combined with Ashok Jr. to wipe out the tail.
One noticable point to improve on will be stamina. The bowlers need to be ablse to maintain accuracy for four overs at least.
The credits for the batting are shared equally amongst the top four batsmen, though Prasad’s shots and Sunil’s effective batting stands out. It was great to see that now we put premium on our wickets. The opening stand of 50 runs was marred with usual gripes of the losers against good umpiring. So, the couple of wickets to fall and 50 and 53 of Prasad and Bibhas was against the run of play and given away by the batsmen due to lack of stamina. Rajat joined Sunil and they carried on the good work with another half century partnership when Rajat got out to boredom at 110. Sanjeeb joined Sunil to carry the team through the home stretch to complete a most outstanding thulping of the Falcons.
I think the best summary of the our performance came from the Falcon’s captain Sheikh, “If you play like this then you should be the champions in Japan”.