YC&AC storms into PFC final

Engineers continue their wayward batting

 By Vijeder Khatri

     It was the same story for Engineers as the previous encounter between the two teams. Same opposition batsman hitting a century and then every Engineer eager to go back to pavilion made the story exactly same and boring. This time we encountered a new Flicx pitch and colorful astro turf outfield at the YC&AC. It was a lovely colorful ground to have a cricket match. Engineers were high on confidence following their fighting win in the last match against the Indian Tigers. All guys were pretty much on time and match started at 11:10 AM with Engineers were asked to field first after losing the toss.

     Engineers opened bowling with Biju Paul and Ashok Kumar. Both bowled a tidy spell with a lovely line and length that made the YC&AC openers difficult to rotate the strike. Engineers were pretty happy about chipping 2 precious wickets inside 10 overs for just 31 runs. Engineers had their plan well executed for all batsmen until the wicket of YC&AC skipper, Kamran Ali, who was out to a frustrated shot after the Engineers blocked all his scoring areas. YC&AC 40 odd runs for the loss of 2 wickets. But then enter Prashant Kale, the most valuable batsman of YC&AC. We all knew we have to get him out as early as possible to restrict YCAC to a moderate total. Dinesh had a perfect plan to get him out and it would have worked to perfection if yours truly had not have been wondering about something and not looking at the playinf field standing at long-off. I was feeling guilty(I’ll buy everyone a beer!) and I tried to repair the non-repairable damage by running hard and fielding well but my team-mates weren’t impressed. Anyway Dinesh created one more chance when Prashant was at 40, this time to mid-on to Bikash but he also fumbled the precious chance even through he held a great catch earlier to get the YCAC captain out. On the other end Riaz, the YC&AC opener was batting beautifully with patience and occasionally hitting the odd boundaries but finally got out to Sanjeeb’s bowling at 40.

     At drinks break after 20 overs YC&AC was at 88 for loss of 2 wickets. But then some violent hitting by Kale (124) and some useful knock from other batsmen YA&CA set a target of 256 for the Engineers to chase with the help of some dropped catches to win the Pacific Friendship Cup Semifinal. As the outfield was pretty fast and ball was nicely coming on to bat, we were pretty confident to make a successful chase if we bat full overs. After having a 25-30 mini lunch break Engineers started the chase with Atul and Santosh but to be disappointed soon with the score reading 15/2. Skipper Kamran started the slide when he trapped Atul plumb in front in the 3rd over of the innings. Yours truly was sent to bat in at 1-down position but was soon bowled by a lovely in swinging delivery from Farhan, which clipped the off stump bail. With the ‘Keeper standing up to the stumps, the main umpire and batsmen had some doubt about whether it was bowled or stumped but the square leg umpire confirmed that it was clean bowled.

     Ashok and Sanjeeb started sensibly to repair the damage, playing cautiously but soon Sanjeeb was out to Neil’s inviting delivery to give a simple catch at mid-on. By Now the Engineers had lost 4 batsmen for score of 38. As soon as some partnership was building between Ashok and Dinesh, Ashok (16) was given out LBW as he left a straight-forward delivery off Neil’s spin bowling. Now Dinesh and Raju were sailing the drowning boat to give the chase some direction. Raju entertained the crowd fully by hitting three huge sixes, one of those almost landing in the swimming pool. But soon Dinesh was left alone on the pitch when he tried to cut a wide delivery for six to shortest part of the boundary but only succeeded in gaving simple catch at point which made score line 82/5. Soon other batsman followed the same pattern with the Engineers getting all out for 112 in 24 overs. This was yet another disappointing batting performance by the Engineers. “Catches win Matches” and we made it true again where as the YC&AC caught all of the chances that came their way in sharp contrast to us. View photos and score card at http://iecc-japan.blogspot.com/

Brief scores: YC&AC 255/7 in 40 overs , Prashant Kale 129, Ashok 3/31, Raju 3/39 IECC 112(24 overs). Raju 24, Dinesh 24, Riaz 3/8