HWC Tigers vs HWC Lions on 15 May 2022 - 40 Overs Match.
HWC Lions won by 5 wickets
Match Highlights
Weather condition: Not that good for playing cricket. Constantly raining.
Toss: Sid won the toss and elected to bat
Passion: Even if it rains both teams are ready to play cricket. This shows the passion and we had no injuries which really was good outcome.
Playing condition: Was slippery in bowlers landing area and made the bowlers conscious
Sid and AdiR opens the innings for Tigers. Dangerous Bala and willey AdiN started to bowl. Bala has this wicket taking momentum this season and boy he started with one. AdiR was lbw without scoring and Adi from other end says I can do it as well and boy he did that by removing captain Sid. Suddenly Tigers are 2 wickets down with nothing on the board. But Tigers reached 15 runs quickly with only 1 scored from the bat. I just want to take this opportunity to praise the umpiring did by Nitin who was lenient on the wides offside which I think was the right thing to do for finishing the matches quickly. Well done Nitin. Then comes in Satinder and Prabhav. Satinder beautifully settled in containing his natural ability to strike the ball and picked only the bad balls to hit - Mark of a good one down batsman. On the other end Prabhav started to show his spark which he was showing the week earlier. But cunning plan by captain Sanjay placing Nishan in the right place and Bala following the plan of bowling away from offstump worked making Prabhav going for a false shot. Good catch there by Nishan took a form batsman out of the field. Vamshi joined and took a role of arresting the flow of wickets. On the other end Satinder grew in confidence and started to play some beautiful looking shots to the boundary. Sadiq was bought in to the attack and he was bowling more accurately without giving any extras through wide. Nishan was brought in the other side who also bowling with control and not giving any wides (he did the same last week as well good start for the season Nishan). With pressure exerted from both ends Satinder cracked and was bowled by Sadiq followed by Vamshi. Robin and Nitin resumed the duty and started to settle down but constantly challenged by Nishan and Sadiq. And they removed both of them when both seems to be setting themself up for a long innings. Ritesh and Haradri replaced the batsmans and they both rotated the strike beautifully. But then came the unsung hero Sanjay the spinner. He removed Ritesh with a delivery which did not spin with catch taken beautifully behind the stumps by Rachit (well kept). Ishwar joined Haradri in the middle. Haradri was playing fluently on the other end as if rain/bowling/pitch does not matter - He is in good nick. Then comes another delivery from Sanjay which removed Ishwar. Rajesh now joined Haradri in the middle and the plan was to rotate the strike and play the remaining overs. They both did manage to do that for short time but unfortunately Haradri was run out [Yes I take the blame of calling him for the run he is not prepared to run. Sorry Haradri]. Then Ankur joined Rajesh in the middle and expectation is to remain there and score as much as possible as there are many overs left. Then Amit came in to bowl his second spell. Man he was accurate attacking the stumps with pace as well - No one will say Amit did not play for some time. He got Ankur out caught and that is the end of the innings.
Things to note:
Innings ended in 34 overs!! 6 overs short.
34 extras in 141 score.
Sanjay captaincy - He brought the right bowlers to attack the batsmans and rotated them very well.
Nishan and Sadiq combo - Bowled brilliantly without giving any extras
Revant - Fantastic bowling by him. He corrected his mistakes from last week and looking to threaten if he keeps bowling like this.
Fielding by Lions is good and they held on to most of the catches came towards them. Highlight - Throw from Suresh Shetty which castles the stump causing Haradris run out. Suresh was outstanding in the field.
Rachit and Vinayak opened the innings for Lion. Rajesh and Nitin opened bowling for Tigers. It was a equal fight between bat and ball for first few overs with some delightful boundaries from Rachit. Vinayak was in the mean time playing anchor role sizing the bowling. I was trying to set Rachit up and started to work from my third over bowling my first bouncer of the season :) then few balls outside off stump and finally one which went to the leg stump and swung to the middle which castles Rachit. I am writing this to say it took so much effort to get his wicket as he was very fluent and playing with ease. Then Sathya joined Vinayak. Vinayak suddenly switched his gears and started to hit only boundaries (saving his energy running between wickets). It was raining boundaries from Vinayaks bat (what did you eat in the morning Vinayak :) ). Captain Sid changed bowlers to reverse this but Vinayak was going hammer and tongs. On the other hand cool and calm Sathya playing straight not taking any risk. He too started to score briskly which is not a good sign for Tigers. Ishwar started to get in to his rhythm and started to create troble to the batsman. Sid introduced surprise spinner Prabhav on the other end. Ishwar and Prabhav started to take wickets in their overs and suddenly score board read 105/5. This gave some hope to the Tigers. In came Amit and Revant who had totally differnt plan. They both played straight and did not took any change in spite of pressure exerted by Ishwar and Prabhav. Ishwar got Revant bold and opened up another opportunity. AdiN came in and put an end to all those hopes. Amit and AdiN finished the innings in style. Match ended in 28 overs!!!
Things to note:
Excellent hitting by Vinayak
Steady bowling by Ishwar
Captain introducing Prabhav as surprise
Sathya Amit AdiN Revant playing supporting role to take the innings to safety.
Player of the Match