Washington Cricket Club

Scorecard

Punjab Lions v Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB on Sat 12 May 2012 at 10:00 AM
Washington Cricket Club Lost By 3 Wickets

Match report Batting misfire as Washington go down to Punjab Lions by 3 wickets in an upset loss in game 2

On a sunny day, WCC landed up at the Pimlico cricket ground hopeful of building on their winning opening game of the season, only to be shocked at the condition of the ground. It reminded one of Bollywood songs shot in Switzerland amid lush grass and yellow flowers. (Yes. Yellow flowers.)

Even though just before the game started the local park maintenance guys mowed the lawn, still the grass was quite thick and a score of 120-130 looked to be above par.

Washington won the toss and though slightly in two minds whether to bat or field considering the nature of the ground and also our unfamiliarity with our opponents, stuck to the strengths of the team, which is to put up a score and defend it successfully. As usual, Sameer and Raj opened for us.

Immediately it was apparent that we had a challenge on our hands. The pitch suited the bowlers better with steep bounce and yes, with a dosage of shooters as well. Ball swung/seamed as well and they had a good pace attack. Raj was bowled in the 3rd over for a duck and Sameer went hitting a full toss straight to midwicket for 2. We were in early trouble again and Palash and Sharath were the men trying to bring it back. Both found the going tough and played and missed quite a few.

In such a scenario, one of two ways can be adopted to get back in the game. Steal singles and twos hitting along the ground or go big aerial. Pinching singles and twos seemed almost impossible owing to the thick grass- the ball barely traveled off the square. Not wanting to propagate a collapse, a lot of balls were played defensively. At the stroke of the first water break, Palash (0) ran himself out to a suicidal single to square leg not able to make his ground back , with his boot getting stuck in the pitch. 14/3 after 10.

Bad start.

Murali and Sharath put on a sort of a mini partnership trying to preserve wickets. Murali was in good touch, picking the length well and playing confidently while Sharath hung in there trying to build a score. Close to the second break, Sharath (11) got bowled trying to pull a short ball, the ball hitting the thigh pad and bounced full on to the stumps. Murali (12) went next when he played the only false stroke of his innings mistiming a lofted one over extra cover and the fielder took a brilliant running catch to end a promising innings. We were 5 down for less than 50 and in deep trouble.

Fawad (7) didn’t offer a shot at an incoming delivery and lost his off stump and Viral (2), hit across the line of one to be yet another bowled batsman. Taran (17) who went in next, looked in great touch, middling everything with precise shot selection, rotating the strike and even striking two fine boundaries, a square cut of Lions’ paciest bowler being the shot of the innings. Pratik (2) who was holding up one end with Taran, got bowled off a pacy full toss and Taran, running out of partners, played across the line in a dismissal similar to Viral’s. Debutant Sunil (0) became the seventh Washington batsman to be bowled (off an inside edge) in the innings, leaving Jagan (0*) without having faced a ball. Thus ended another underwhelming batting performance by Washington at 86. Though the conditions were tough for scoring and the bowling good, 86 is a bad score by any standards and the third consecutive weak batting performance by the team. Special mention has to made of their opening bowler Gurpreet who scalped a fifer.

Again, the bowlers had a job to do.

Jagan and Sharath opened the bowling and though their batsman hardly scored anything off the bat for the first 4-5 overs, bowled some wides. As in our innings, their top order too played and missed a lot as Jagan in particular seamed the ball both ways and had their batsman connecting with air most of the time. But this time, uncharacteristically, early breakthroughs did not materialize and at the end of 10, they were 24/0 with 14 extras.

After the break, Viral got us our first breakthrough bowling their opener Sunny Deol (No not THAT one). Murali then got their one drop to sky a length ball in the air to Sharath at mid off. Gurpreet , the next batsman in, read Viral’s faster one, used his feet and lofted it over Viral’s head for four. Viral tossed the next one up invitingly, holding the length back a bit. The batsman hit it straight to Sharath at deep midwicket and an offspinner had lured a batsman to his doom. Viral, our bowler of the day, quickly removed two more batsman, trapping the other opener leg before and clean bowling the next fooling him with flight. At 20, they needed around 25-30 runs with 5 wickets to go.

Though our bowlers and fielders tried hard (maybe a bit too hard as we conceded a lot of wides), their batsman kept their nerve, bring them close to the target. With less than 10 to go, Sunil got 2 batsman out as Sameer and Taran held on to skiers and they were 83/7. But by the 28th over they went our score and we lost.

The bowlers and fielders tried their best but it wasn’t good enough on the day. The thing with defending a really low score is that everything needs to go your way because the margin for error is almost non existent. Every chance, every half chance needs to be taken and luck is needed for balls to go where fielders are, all the time. This doesn’t happen every time of course.

The batting needs to fire and I am very sure it will. It is still early in the season and with a couple of games under our belts, we are sure to find our feet and post decent totals for most of our games. You cannot escape bad days from time to time but the effort will always be to improve our respective games. This we can do by playing with a bit more freedom (not to be misread as playing with recklessness of course J ). Each time we go out we hit hard at teams which are now coming hard at us. This we will. We must.

On to Warriors on June 2nd and here’s hoping for a brilliant all round Washington performance.

Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 27w 3b 1lb 
for 10 wickets
32
86		        
Sameer Apte ct Gurpreet 2 1
Raj Srinivasan b Gurpreet 0
Palash Sarkar Run out  0
Sharath Parvathavani b Dalwinder 11 2
Murali Sripadam ct (C) Janty (B) Gurwinder 12
Fawad Ahmed b Gurwinder 7
Viral Patel b Lovepreet 2
Taran Dhupar b Gurpreet 17 1
Pratik Goradia b Gurpreet 2
Jagannath Surampudi Not Out  0
Sunil Mathai b Gurpreet 0

Punjab Lions Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Gurpreet7.202154.202.86
Janty3.02100.000.33
Dalwinder8.0110110.001.25
Gurwinder8.0121210.502.63
Amarveer6.002100.003.50
Lovepreet2.00717.003.50

Punjab Lions Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
4nb 24w 2b  
for 7 wickets
30
91 (28.0 overs)		     
Sunny Deol b Viral 14
Suryakant lbw Viral 12
Gurwinder ct (C) Sharath (B) Murali 1
Gurpreet ct (C) Sharath (B) Viral 4
Lovepreet b Viral 9
Janty ct (C) Sameer (B) Sunil 8
Dalwinder ct (C) Taran (B) Sunil 2
Amarvir Not Out  0
Jagdeep Not Out  6
Amandeep  
Gurdip  

Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Jagannath Surampudi7.021700.002.43
Sharath Parvathavani4.001400.003.50
Murali Sripadam5.0122122.004.40
Viral Patel8.021744.252.13
Sameer Apte2.00300.001.50
Sunil Mathai2.301628.006.40