26th April, 1998
After an amazing arrival of the team in 4 vehicles ( 1 van +3 cars)- with the occupants of one car (Krishna's) looking positively doped- TCC began its quest to repeat as MCCOC champions. The weather was great for cricket- around 70 F, with clear skies. The field at HCC was quite good with a reasonably good outfield (compared to Shiloh it was Eden Gardens). The pitch was a makeshift one where the grass growth was lower than the surroundings. After pitching the ball would come fast or slow and bounce high or low depending on its mood. Bottom line being it was perfect for cricket.
Vijay won the toss and after consulting his inner soul (and none of his team mates) decided to bowl. A good decision nevertheless as we did not know how the "pitch" will behave. TCC started off with Krishna (bowling with the breeze) and Amit. Again –intended or not- another decent idea of Vijay's as Amit normally keeps the ball to the stumps and makes the batsman play. Yeshpal on the other hand with his superior pace bowls much better with an older ball. One can only speculate whether Vijay's actually thought about these things or whether he handed the ball to Amit 'cause he was closest to him.
Krishna concentrated on getting his line right in the first over while Amit had trouble keeping the ball up to the batsman on this pitch. As a result HCC played the 1st two overs off with the minimum fuss. Then from over # 3 the collapse began. It all began with Vijay encouraging (?) Krishna after each ball which the HCC opener did not like. After he politely (!) told Vijay to keep quiet and Vijay responded (equally politely), Krishna was all fired up. The ball which got the opening wicket beat the batsman (on his backfoot) all ends up to remove the off stump. The other opener fell to the ball of the match from Krishna- who by this time was cutting the ball both ways (Krishna says it is due to this new "grip" on the ball he has and Vijay insists that he was the one who told Krishna how to hold it- maybe Vijay should try it himself)- the ball pitched outside the off and cut in real sharply beating him all ends up and removing his stumps. An absolute delight to watch if you are in the bowling team. Krishna was really hyper by now and was hi-fi ing anything which moved. Common sense prevailed with people waiting for Krishna to settle down before opting to shake hands with him.
The third wicket was also claimed by Krishna: two balls bowled outside the off-stump beat the batsman all ends up. The third one was just short of good length on the off stump and the frustrated batsman went for the drive w/o reaching the pitch of the ball and dragged it on to his stumps. Three wkts- all of them- bowled. This got two West Indians to the crease. Thomas (who was also their opening bowler) played Krishna off watchfully when Vijay made a good bowling change- Rajesh was brought in for Amit. Rajesh settled down on a good rhythm immediately. He let the pitch do what it wanted and kept the ball up to the batsman inviting him to drive. Thomas went for a couple of big hits and mistimed both. Seeing him give the charge Damodar who was at mid-off moved a couple of yards deeper. The next ball was again pitched up inviting the drive- which Thomas did. The ball was hit off the meat of the bat and went flat and fast in the air to Damodar. And he took a beauty- running in and holding the catch close to his knees. From his strokes, Thomas looked like one of their better bats and his wicket really deflated HCC which was 15 odd for 4 wkts.
They never recovered. The other West Indian swatted Rajesh for a four over midwicket. Rajesh persisted with the same line and this time the same shot went to deep square leg where Amit, running backwards took a very well judged catch. The next batsman (their captain) tried to prod at the first ball- the ball stopped and bounced and Yeshpal took the best catch seen in TCC's short history. After warding off the hat trick the next batsman played and missed consistently. At this time HCC was 22 odd for 7.
Vijay brought himself on at this stage in the hope of tempting the batsman with a slower one. The pitch was extremely slow and hardly conducive to his bowling. The batsman had time to go back and play. Realizing this Vijay tried bowling faster and had the misfortune of seeing the 1 st of two atrocious decisions. The ball pitched and was on the middle stump. The batsman tried a shot- missed and was plumb in front. On the appeal- the umpire said missing the stumps. We decided that this was really unsporting but figured- it cannot get any worse. Think again…
This time- the batsman was on the backfoot. The ball kept low and could not find the stumps 'cause the batsman's leg was in between. Which if read differently will be "his leg was before the wicket". If one had captured that by freeze frame we could have put that up as the definition of lbw. When we appealed the umpire said "missing the stumps". We did ask him whether he was looking at whole different set of stumps which we did not know about…
In any case, Vijay lost two of 'his' wkts and suffered endless ribbing from everyone . After Rajesh got his 4th wicket- I cannot recall how- Yeshpal got a chance to bowl. The 1st over of his produced two wickets- one lbw (at last) and one was a return catch which he easily took (atleast this writer thinks that he is the 2 nd best fielder in the team after Ramesh). HCC was all out for 48 in around 16 overs.
All bowlers bowled well with Krishna being the pick of the lot. He gave around 10 runs for his 4 wkts in 6 overs. Rajesh gave around 10 for his 4 wkts also. Vijay and Amit bowled well and were quite unfortunate not to share the spoils. Poor Yeshpal got only one over on his last match b4 leaving for India but got 2 wkts in that one. But all said and done the one thing which TCC did well was fielding. The ground fielding was really good and all catches were taken- with a couple - Damodar and Amit's being good ones. If we continue this way- it should definitely help our chances of winning some games.
One crucial aspect which was not mentioned so far- wicket keeping. With pitch having dual bounce - keeping was going to be very crucial. And with Kalyan opting out of this match- Khalil who kept wickets did an outstanding job. Keeping with quiet confidence- I cannot remember anything which went past him. This undoubtedly helped the bowlers confidence.
Obtaining 50 was not going to be tough –or so we thought. Damodar- who is an absolute annihilator of the bowling anyone who bats after him looks pitiful (for more info ask Ramesh who played after him in the ANZACS game)- was surprised by Thomas's pace and was beaten and rapped in the pad while shuffling in and was out lbw. Ramesh went in and Vijay gave him confidence by immediately telling the next batsman to pad up (history shows that Vijay had enough reasons). But with Ramesh poking and prodding and Rajesh being his calm assured self- looking at him you will never know whether he is batting in the 1st or the last over- the score went up to 30 when Rajesh fell. The ball was a straight one and Rajesh misjudged the pace and got bowled. This brought Khalil to the crease and he settled down and kept taking singles to keep the score moving. Ramesh was unnerving Khalil by his crazy running between the wickets and after telling Ramesh to "call" before running the partnership progressed smoothly. Just when it looked as though that TCC will cruise to a win for no further loss of wkts- Khalil fell, flatbatting a shot to deep mid on where the fielder took a nice catch. Ram came in and played as only he can- straight bat and letting anything outside the off, go. With Ramesh and Ram, TCC won with the winning hit being a four down to square leg. Ramesh was unbeaten with 25 lucky runs and Ram was on 4. TCC scored 50 off 11.4 overs.
Altogether a good game to start the season for TCC. A tough game against ANZACS is next. Thanks to Srini who made a trip all the way with the team to Hampton.