Washington Cricket Club

Scorecard

WCL-Urbana CC v Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB on Sun 08 Jul 2018 at 12:00 PM
Washington Cricket Club Won By 63 Runs

Match report Batsmen Setup a 63-Run Win for Washington against Urbana

Washington met Urbana on a rarely beautiful summer afternoon at Strawberry Knoll to move their 40-over campaign towards the ultimate goal of Division 1 Championship. Viral habitually won the toss and elected to bat given the concrete wicket was not going to help the bowlers or change much through the course of the next 3 years.

The ever-late pair of Madhu and Anil “Barood” Bhai were rewarded for their 12 PM arrival on a 11 AM reporting time by being immediately asked to open the inning. Anil bhai found it extremely difficult to lay bat on leather for the first few balls since the bowler was not able to locate the stumps but once he did pitch a couple straight enough, Anil bhai deposited one in the bushes to get the scoring going. Madhu on the other end was out to a freak dismissal in the second over. After watching a couple of wides he appeared to be beaten by a ball that beat the keeper as well and went down to fine leg. On closer inspection, the keeper pointed that one of the bails was dislodged and Madhu (0 off 2) had to walk off without troubling the scorers much. Ritwik joined Anil Bhai and looked solid from the get go. The pair negotiated the next few overs that were bowled with reasonable discipline from Sunil and Srinivas with poise. However, in the 6th over it appeared that Anil Bhai (11 off 21) had run out of patience for Srinivas’ juicy slow-medium balls, charged him and smacked a ball straight to Sunil at short-cover (Washington 36/2 in 5.5 overs). Ankur joined Ritwik, and after a fidgety start settled into the role of supporting Ritwik who appeared resolute in his approach to batting. The pair kept the scoreboard moving and dispatched balls to the boundary when the opportunity presented itself. The measured approach carried Washington to the first water break with the score at 79/2 in 13 overs. Washington lost Ankur (17 off 30) soon after the water break as he was adjudged LBW to a ball that was clearly missing leg by a distance and elicited a few chuckles from the opposition. Karan went in and was positive from ball 1. Within no time both Karan and Ritwik were smoking balls to the fence with relative ease as the score reached 136/3 in 22 overs. Ritwik (47 off 58) got another howler of a decision and was adjudged LBW just shy of his half century to another ball clearly missing leg stump, and without much of an appeal from Urbana. Karan and Kalyan watchfully carried Washington to the second water break (Washington 148/4 in 26 overs). Washington had the perfect platform and enough batting in the shed for an onslaught. And an onslaught it was. The first over after the break went for 11 and boundaries were scored in the 2 overs that followed it. Karan’s (38 off 43) dismissal off a well-bowled yorker in the 30th over brought in Harsh who looked to make hay while the sun shone. There was no hiding place for Urbana bowlers as Harsh and Kalyan ruthlessly dispatched balls to the boundary with increasing frequency. Kalyan brought up his 50 in the 33rd over - 40 of them coming via boundaries. By the time Kalyan (50 off 37) was dismissed in the 34th over, Washington already had 217 on the board with plenty more to come. It was the Harsh show from that point on. Garnering support from Viral (12 off 11), Harsh carried on his merry way scoring boundaries with ease. Pratik came in with about 3 overs to go and laid his stamp on the game with the limited tim he had, scoring 7 off 16 that included a six that was a 8 foot high laser straight over the bowler’s head. Washington finished with 284/6 in the allotted 40 overs, with Harsh unbeaten on 56 off 33 balls - a magnificent inning that is best left for the videos to describe. With the exception of Madhu, every Washington batsman at least hit a six. There were 16 sixes and 18 fours in the inning (almost 60% of the total score).

Given the reputation of Strawberry Knoll and it being Urbana’s homeground, everyone watching the game felt Washington had a very good score on the board that would take some chasing but it was definitely not in the impossible zone. Ankur started the total defense with a routinely disciplined opening over, and was well supported by Kiran at the other end. With almost nothing on the board and almost 4 overs out of the way, some desperation in the Urbana openers met a peach of a delivery by Kiran to send the stumps flying and give Washington their first wicket (Urbana 6/1 in 3.5 overs). Both Ankur and Kiran stuck to bowling in good areas and constricted the run flow. Ankur picked up Raman to send Urbana deeper into the trouble spot at 25/2 in 8.1 overs. Ritwik replaced Kiran and immediately managed to find the edge of Srinivas, which Ankur had been looking for a while, in the 12th over. Washington went into the water break on top with Urbana reeling at 45/3 in 13 overs. Karan disturbed Nikhil Bahl’s stump arrangement immediately following the drinks break, and along with Ritwik carried on the good work in the bowling department until the 20th over when the spinners were introduced. At 84/4 in 20 overs Urbana was now staring down the gun barrel with over 200 required off the last 20. Washington seamers seemed to have exquisitely designed a coffin that the spinners simply needed to nail. Both Viral and Madhu got going a little tough, primarily due to the small boundaries that didn’t need a proper hit to be cleared and Sunil who was hitting the ball relatively well. However, as soon as Madhu decided to bowl an attacking line versus trying not to get hit for a six, leather met wood again but this was the wood was the middle stump. Despite Sunil’s enterprising knock, Urbana was still merely 127/5 in 26 overs needing more than 11 an over for a win at the second drinks break. Viral and Madhu bowled 6 overs following the drinks break picking up 3 wickets and conceding only 30 runs between them. 128 runs off 48 balls was now deep into the impossible territory. As a combination of initiative from Nishant and sloppy fielding from Washington improved the run flow for Urbana, medium pacers were brought back on to keep the runs in check. The seamers carefully shepherded the Urbana inning to the 40th over with Urbana needing 74 runs from the last 6 balls. Pratik then bowled the worst delivery of the inning and Rushi held on to a catch, the only ball he actually stopped in the whole game, to add to the charm of how leading wicket takers operate at club level. A few minutes later the duty of bowling 40 overs was completed and Washington walked off with a 64-run win.

The great work of batsmen was well-supported by the bowlers. However, fielding remains the Achilles heel for Washington. There were a few chances that went begging and there were unnecessary easy runs given. While these runs don’t matter much in a one-sided win but can come back to bite you in a close encounter. There was a lot of great work between Ritwik, Kalyan and Karan in the batting. However, Harsh’s swashbuckling unbeaten half century was definitely deserving for man of the match as it took the game away from Urbana.

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Ankur Saini

Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 32w 2b  
for 7 wickets
37
284		        
Anil Kumar Singh ct c Sunil b Srinivas 11 21 1 52.38
Madhu Reddy b Srinivas 0 2 0
Ritwik Behera lbw Nishant 47 58 4 1 81.03
Ankur Saini lbw Gaurav 17 30 2 1 56.67
Karan Saini b Nikhil 38 43 4 2 88.37
Kalyan Musani ct c Haroon b Srinivas 50 38 4 4 131.58
Harsh Pareek Not Out  56 33 4 4 169.70
Viral Patel b Sunil 12 11 1 109.09
Pratik Patel Not Out  14 7 2 200
Rushi Patel  
Kiran Paruchuri  

WCL-Urbana CC Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Sunil V8.0071171.008.88
Srinivas S8.0054318.006.75
Nishant G8.0051151.006.38
Raman V8.012800.003.50
Nikhil K4.0038138.009.50
Gaurav K4.0040140.0010.00

WCL-Urbana CC Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
6w 1b 5lb 
for 9 wickets
12
221 (40.0 overs)		     
Khurram A b Kiran P 4
Jeetendra K st s Harsh b Madhu 75
Raman V ct c Kiran b Ankur 7
Srinivas S ct c Harsh b Ritwik 6
Nikhil B b Karan 1
Sunil V b Madhu 34
Gaurav K ct c Kiran b Madhu 7
Haroon R b Viral 3
Nishant G Not Out  58
Nikhil K ct c Rushi b Pratik P 12
Nagpuranand P Not Out  2

Washington Cricket Club WCC-WMCB Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Ankur Saini8.0214114.001.75
Kiran Paruchuri7.0044144.006.29
Ritwik Behera5.0029129.005.80
Karan Saini5.0122122.004.40
Viral Patel7.0048148.006.86
Madhu Reddy7.0048316.006.86
Pratik Patel1.0010110.0010.00