Washington Cricket Club

Scorecard

Damascus v Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 10:00 AM
Washington Cricket Club Won By 32 runs

Match report Washington CC leads the Conference and the Super 8 by winning their third game in a row defeating Damascus CC by 32 runs at Oxon Hill.

First game at Oxon Hill for the season. Making it a habit, Palash won the toss yet again and this time decided to bat first on a glorious Saturday. We had a new opening combo with Murali and Tarun. The pitch was a two-faced snake – more of that later. They started off reasonably well until Tarun hit a ball to Point and Murali immediately set off for a single. Tarun reacted late but it seemed as if he had made it to the non striker’s end when the bails were dislodged. But the umpire, to our surprise, lifted his finger. Most of us there would bet that if there was a third umpire, Tarun would have won the decision. Raj joined Murali and continued his run of form third game in a row. Sweetly timing the ball, him and Murali were building a partnership when Murali (11) was struck in front of the timber and given LBW. Ravi went at No. 4 and at the first break, we were 30 odd for 2.

After the break, Ravi (2) missed a full toss and was LBW and we were in a slight bother. Sharath went in at No. 5 and the first of two crucial partnerships began to take shape. Raj and Sharath hardly missed an opportunity to score, striking a nice balance between running singles and doubles and punishing when the opportunity arose. Between overs 10 and 20, it was predominantly singles and doubles and at the end of 20, further damage was avoided with the score at 71. A decent platform for what was to follow.

Resuming at the halfway mark of the innings, Sharath and Raj cut loose. Upping the gear, Sharath alternated gratefully plonking a couple of full tosses into the bushes with glides and cuts while Raj flicked, drove and slapped plenty of boundaries. Spinners and medium pacers were treated alike, with every scoring opportunity taken ,along with creating some of their own to push the score past 100. At the stroke of the next break, Raj (45) top edged for short fine leg to hold on to the catch. A big partnership was broken and Kalyan walked in just before the break, with Raj again narrowly missing out on a half century. Score read 130/4 at 30.

Almost immediately after the break, Kalyan (4) was adjudged LBW off Prabhjot the left arm pacer bowling over the wicket. The ball was going to hit the stumps alright but it definitely pitched outside leg stump. The Ump didn’t see it that way though. Soon after, Sharath (48) cut one straight to point , again missing out on the 50.

Enter Mayhem in the form of Viral and Rajiv. Immediately they started tonking the ball all over the park, almost as if competing with each other as to who is going to hit the farthest tree beyond the boundary. Fours and sixes came in abundance and almost every over was a big one, until Rajiv (30) mishit a slower one from Ankur and was out caught. The second vital partnership for WCC. Viral (48) continued to score briskly and trying to maximize in the last over, was bowled becoming the third batsman to narrowly miss out on a half-hundred. Anil and Palash got out off the last 2 deliveries of the innings trying to gather as much as possible, and Ankur their opening bowler had a hattrick and ended up with 5 wickets. Congratulations to him on the performance. Washington ended with 216 all out off 40 overs. All of this while the pitch was crazy. Many balls just rolled after pitching and some took off from a good length. Two faced all the way through.

We were cautiously confident defending 216. Confident because we had a good bowling attack and defend well most times and cautious because of the run up and the delivery stride issues. As a seamer jumps into his delivery stride, there is an upward slope at both ends, more at one end than the other. Not as smooth as Mark Twain , to understate. Anil returned to play his first game of the season and Adil, was our debutant other opening bowler. Anil was understandably rusty after a long lay off and was not the only bowler to struggle to get his direction right. Adil quickly found that the popping crease was better around the wicket and bowled quick and on tight lines. He got Ankur to mistime a lofted shot to mid off and Kalyan, as it happens with everybody who’s ever played cricket, dropped a simple catch , which was quite the rarity. Murali replaced Anil and immediately had Ankur driving uppishly to mid off again, Rajiv this time grabbing the ball safely. It was an important breakthrough.

Adil struck next. The batsman flicked a ball to square leg where Anil held on to a sharp catch. At the 10 over break, they were 46/2.

Their No.s 3 and 4 had a good partnership after that, Sharath dropping a sharp but catchable offering at extra cover off Murali. Viral got rid of their No. 3 and No. 5, trapping both LBW. All the bowlers meanwhile struggled with their lines, mostly because we were unsure of the delivery stride. They had yet another partnership going, and at 20, were 107/4, and the extras were hurting us.

Tarun was introduced into the attack to try to break it. And he did so in his first over, clean bowling Thoufiq, who was set and playing freely. Viral flighted one invitingly, knowing they were all going to go for their shots and the batsman couldn’t resist. He hit one hard and flat to Sharath at long on, who had to run in a bit and he managed to hold on to it. In the very next over, Tarun, who was doing a fine job with the ball, got the batsman to slice uppishly to point at Sharath. An easy catch. We had reduced them to 140 odd for 7. The game was ours to lose.

Raj was brought on to bowl and he could not get his lines right either. Murali at deep square leg dropped a skier as well, taking the dropped catches tally to 3. Their lower order smashed a few out of the park and along with the still mounting extras (final count 65!), played well to take them into the final break. At the 30 over mark, they needed 45 runs to get with 3 wickets in hand and 10 full overs to get them in. It was close at this point and if they had played sensibly, it could have gotten closer.

Resuming for the final dash, Adil struck immediately , Murali this time holding onto a similar skier at the same position and a few balls later, Adil struck again, the batsman driving straight to Palash at midwicket. One wicket to go. Anil was brought back and he struck in the 34th over with a bouncer. The batsman pulled it straight up in the air and Ravi caught it to give us a 32 run win.

The batsmen for our team did a good job while the bowlers had an off day and need to adjust quick since we have 4 more games at the same ground. Having said that, there need be no doubt that it was a one off for the bowlers and fielders and we will see them fire in unison next game.

A good , important win which puts us at No.1 in the conference and unbeaten in the Super 8 league, so far. Let’s aim to keep it that way.

Top 3 batsmen:
Sharath – 48
Viral – 48
Raj – 45

Top 3 bowlers:
Adil – 3/22
Viral – 3/38
Tarun – 2/12

Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
22w 1b 1lb 
for 10 wickets
24
216		        
Tarun Chopra Run out  1
Murali Sripadam ct Ankur 11 1
Raj Srinivasan ct (C) Avinash (B) Toufiq 45
Ravi Vellore lbw Ikwak 2 1
Sharath Parvathavani ct Toufiq 48 2
Kalyan Musani lbw Prabhjot 4
Viral Patel b Ankur 48
Rajiv Jain ct Ankur 31 1
Palash Sarkar ct Ravi (B) Ankur 2 1
Anil Kumar ct Ankur 0 1
Adil Latiwala Not Out  0

Damascus Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Prabhjot8.0044144.005.50
Ankur8.004158.205.13
Ikwak6.0035135.005.83
Sumit8.003500.004.38
Ibrahim5.002300.004.60
Arjun2.002000.0010.00
Toufiq3.001628.005.33

Damascus Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
65nb  
for 10 wickets
65
184 (33.5 overs)		     
Avinash ct Anil (B) Adil 6
Ankur ct Rajiv (B) Murali 4
Ravi lbw Viral 29
Thoufiq b Tarun 33
Ikwak lbw Viral 21
Khamis ct Murali (B) Adil 17
Sumeet ct Sharath (B) Viral 1
Hassan ct Sharath (B) Tarun 0
Ibrahim ct Palash (B) Adil 15
Arjun ct Ravi (B) Anil 3
Prabhjot Not Out  3

Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Anil Kumar6.5141141.006.00
Adil Latiwala7.012237.333.14
Murali Sripadam5.0026126.005.20
Viral Patel8.0038312.674.75
Sharath Parvathavani3.001600.005.33
Tarun Chopra3.001226.004.00
Raj Srinivasan1.002100.0021.00