HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAMESH - FROM ALL TCC MEMBERS

What an awesome game! For the lucky few who were there at Shiloh- they got to see two spectacular knocks- two 95 + scorers. Around 32 sixers were hit and of course the black hole that is Shiloh sucked in 5-7 balls.

To start at the beginning- TCC did not have three of its batsman- Vijay, Ram and Naveen for this game. If at all any blame has to attributed to an individual for this loss- it has to be Naveen! While the first two had valid reasons for missing the game- Naveen got injured testing his leaping ability over a tennis net. The net won…

With Krishna taking time off from cricket for personal reasons and invading the beaches of sunny California, TCC started off with Amit and Yeshpal. What a nice start… No wides and every ball was bowled to the stump. Yeshpal had the eventual centurion in all sort of knots in his first spell. One of the balls opened him up totally and took the edge and dropped just short of Rajesh at first slip. In sheer frustration the batsman attempted a lofted shot which took the top edge and fell less than a feet behind Amit at point. Clearly "out" in any other field- but the Shiloh boundaries in the off are quite close. Another shot went over point and could have been taken comfortably- but the fielder was playing cricket for the first time after so many years and misjudged it. Amit on the other end was very consistent and focussed and bowled straight to the bat making the batsman play every ball.

Despite the absence of wides HP was scoring well as they consistently got the odd four in every over. Mushtaq was batting especially well with some lovely strokes on either side of the wicket. And then Qaiser took off… An unbelievable striker of the ball, he started launching the ball…With both bowlers Amit and Yesh getting hit off even good balls, damodar brought himself on.

The move paid immediate dividends when Mushtaq went once too often to pull a ball from leg through midwicket, missed the line off a quicker one to be trapped in front. By this time the score was around 85 off ten overs with good contributions from both openers.

After the 10^th over till the last few it was literally a one man show. TCC kept getting people out at the other end. But Qaiser personally made sure that each partnership was worth 20-25 odd by his massive blows. 20 of these runs used to come from his willow. Anand bowled very well and got Malik off a ball which went quickly through after pitching to disturb the stumps. And then came the mistake which probably cost TCC the game.

Typically when I write these reports I try to severe on myself even if do ok. This is not one of those occasions…Along with Yesh’s dismissal these two errors probably cost us the match. Qaiser had just got to his 50 and was trying to hit the cover off every ball. There was bound to be a chance in the deep and Damodar made sure that all the better catchers were in the line- Yesh, Sandeep, Amit, Ramesh and Damodar were stationed in the line. The ball from Anand was well pitched up and hit well and hard and came to me over my head. Having gotten both hands to it, the ball stuck nicely for atleast a second and then while I was getting my hands down it slipped off my hand ever so slowly to the ground. Man, did we regret that.

Qaiser scored 55 more runs after that but more importantly his overall contribution was much greater. It is my personal belief that if we had gotten him at that time we could have got HP for around 150-160 runs.

To continue, Qaiser really massacred our attack after that. Not that we bowled badly. He was seeing the ball well and everything was meeting the meat of the bat. For example in one of Sandeep’s overs he was at sea for the first two balls. The third was hit (a perfectly good ball) over midwicket. Sandeep pitched the next one slightly short to invite a mishit- the ball was swung from outside the off to over squarish mid wicket for another six. One shot of Damodar stands out. The short ball was pulled so hard that it went into the ‘chicken’ house. That ball was still climbing when it left the ground. Ofcourse Damodar was to reply to all this later…

Interestingly not once did the bowlers run astray. Rajesh in between had trouble controlling his swing- and boy was he swinging the ball. But he settled down to bowl well. Both Sandeep and Damodar- ofcourse don’t bowl wides. So inspite of this assault the bowling continued to be straight and the fielding was good.

In the other end Ghais was taken by Ramesh at widish long off. Yeshpal who was taken out in the third over when he looked as though he was running out of gas, was excellent in his two spells and was well utilized by Damodar. Damodar got Faisal when the latter tried to drive the ball over long off. Sandeep who looked as though he was running in slow motion (after a late start towards the ball!) took a fantastic catch. I have yet to see him drop one…the ball sticks like a magnet to his hands.

Qaiser got his 100- a well deserved one- pushing for a single to covers. He tried to hit Amit immediately and Amit’s bowling was truly a revelation…I counted 4 consecutive balls which Amit made him miss. The last two matches have been very good for Amit who seems to have got his confidence and wicket taking abilities back. Finally Qaiser fell caught close to the line by Yesh– a well judged catch off a skier.

The last 4-5 overs were ragged as the match was taking its toll on us. Two catches were missed by Damodar and Anand- relatively simple ones. HP benefited by around 20-30 runs. Little did we know that this would come back to haunt us. Amit got Fahd bowled off a classic slower ball; Tahseen lofted Sandeep a mile in the air and Anand judged that catch beautifully. Aqib lofted Damodar into the ever so safe hands of Yeshpal. Shami- the HP captain had some lovely shots in his unbeaten 31. HP ended with 255.

A word about the bowling and captaincy. Although we got hit for 255 the bowling was much much better than at MCC. 17 wides may look like a lot but if one takes the number of runs that were scored this was quite ok. Additionally we used almost 8 balls in our bowling. That really played havoc- especially with Rajesh’s bowling who in between his over had to start with a new ball which started swinging like crazy- leading to wides. These wides were interspersed evenly through the match. Anand bowled great- at last he is getting to where he was last year, in bowling. Although Qaiser gave him the charge many a time he stuck to his line and was rewarded. As mentioned before - Amit, Yeshpal and Sandeep all bowled well. Damodar did a very good job trying out every bowler he had (except Ramesh- who if called on may have provided the first 300+ score at Shiloh) and very quietly went up and talked to the bowlers if they were doing something different than what he had in mind. Inspite of this massive onslaught I was very happy to see that everyone was encouraging the bowlers and kept hustling to stop singles even when the score was 220 plus. Not one guy screamed or said anything when things were going wrong. Good job – guys. Every wicket – even in the last overs got everyone into a huddle to congratulate the bowler. Great spirit and lets keep it up; Let’s keep this attitude of being positive when the chips are down.

Before I go on to our batting- one word for Dipankar and Sai- the two new guys. They obviously had not played cricket for a long time and this combined with Shiloh’s flat, green outfield led to their baptism by fire. Dipankar, threw his body a lot of times on the ball and prevented a lot of runs at point. I noticed that Sai who was posted on the "no activity- are you alive" slot- at the fine leg boundary, kept standing as he was told which was on the line. Never once did he come forward or asked for a different place to field. He did a good job fielding those glances. Thanks to both of them for helping us out when we needed it most.

Came lunch- and we spent the 30 mins trying to figure out who has to go opening. Choice of course lay between Dam and Kal. We had decided earlier that Kal would open with Rajesh but the "slightly" higher score from HP prompted a review. The logic that damodar can step in after the ball starts doing some funny stuff finally prevailed and Kal opened with Rajesh. Rajesh was playing pretty well and the runs were coming of the bat, wides, no balls, byes- you name it. Unfortunately Rajesh fell jabbing at a ball outside off to be well taken by first slip.

Ramesh went in and along with Kalyan saw the score go up to 35 in 5 overs when he was run out backing up Kal’s call. Kal realized there was no run – but by that time ramesh was too far gone to regain his crease.

Although two wickets had gone the score was always frolicking at a very high pace. Kalyan rocked. Man what shots..! 3 sixes in his 27. Must be the new gloves/pads. The first six was over square leg. The second one was pulled from wide outside leg to squarish fine leg for another six. The third was a classic. The ball was picked from middle-leg and flicked effortlessly over square leg for a huge six. Just when he was all set for a nice stint he got for a down-right bad shot. Having played every shot off the middle of the bat- for whatever reason he tried to glide a ball from the off stump through slips (his favorite shot) missed the line and the ball clipped the bails.

Khalil and Damodar got together. What followed was just great to watch. Khalil played and missed the first four balls- the definition of comprehensively beaten! He smiled angelically at the bowler after each miss. Sandeep who was scoring turned back and said "Khalil is going to score big today". I gave him a look which said "You must be kidding me- Are we watching the same game!?". Seeing my incredulous look sandeep pointed out that when Khalil gives you cardiac arrests like this at the start that means that the fireworks will soon follow. The fifth ball was straight to stumps. Khalil picked it and calmly lofted it a mile over midwicket. And then gave the same angelic smile to the bowler- who for some reason did not smile back. Apparently Khalil has got this "I will miss some balls and then hit you for some sixes’ down to an art-form.

Damodar was very different. The swash buckling "every ball has to go over the boundary" attitude was relplaced by a calm pensive and calculating Damodar. He settled down for 3 overs- which means that he just hit one six in each over- by reading the bowlers and taking his singles. Lately ( Yeshpal was telling me about this in the previous match also) Khalil- who used to prefer going for evening walks between the striker and non striker end has started really sprinting between the wickets. Yesh and Khalil took some real quick singles in the MCC game. With Damodar, Khalil kept rotating the strike and the singles combined with the occassional big hits moved us ever so slowly towards the huge total.

The atmosphere in the trenches was electric. The guys were having a ball encouraging every run. Kal, Ramesh made sure that everyone who was sitting in a particular place stayed there- talk about superstition! Khalil provided lots of cheer by pulling the HP bowlers for a couple of massive hits on the leg side for sixes. After a great 35 (his best to date- comparable to the final last year) he got out slashing outside the off stump to be taken by the keeper. A great innings…

Anand went in and Damodar who was content till then to let Khalil do the damage moved into overdrive. Man, what shots. By the time he was done he had 10 sixes and 4 fours! One of the shots was hit which such power that it went right into the chicken pen. A huge, huge six. With Anand rotating the strike Damodar really started punishing the loose balls. This stretch of 8 overs saw TCC score 17-20 runs a over without working up a sweat. Damodar went from 40 odd to his 90’s in not more than 20-25 balls. The tide had definitely turned in our direction.

Anand who had a good day overall, played a lovely innings – not forcing anything but easily picking gaps for the singles and twos. Two lovely sixes punctuated his innings- one a lovely off drive on top of cover and the other a pull over midwicket. No ball was wasted as these guys kept taking singles. Unfortunately Anand got out playing back to a well pitched up ball- he missed his attempted back cut to be bowled.

Yeshpal came in and immediately settled down. This guy (who is the second tallest guy in the team after Ramesh) completes a run in four strides. The very first ball was driven nice and clean for a single. With Yeshpal in the other end damodar took 22 and 17 runs off two overs. We needed 29 off six with 5 wickets remaining when the ball was lost. During this break, Rajesh informed damodar that we needed 29 to win and that he was on 96. I still think that telling this was ok. We did not want either of these guys to get out and it was important for damodar to get his century. After all this he definitely deserved this and more…

The first two balls of the next over was played back to the bowler by Damodar – who looked as though that he wanted to just take the singles and coast to a win. I am not sure what he thought about the next ball but took a swipe at it. 99 times out of 100- that was six. Unfortunately this was not our day and the ball hit the top edge and he was very well caught by the keeper. Would it have helped if we had kept quiet about the 100? Did it make him tensed? I don’t know- but knowing damodar, the answer is probably not. An absolutely superb, fantastic, awesome, fabulous, amazing …..(and so on) innings. Hats off for a great display. The best part about it was that he did not try to hit every ball. He waited for the right one and once it came made sure that the ball did not stay inside the ground. Hope he continues to build his innings- he will be almost impossible to get out then. And I do hope he gets a chance to go down in the middle order.

Amit came and looked really confident- the first ball being offdriven off the middle of the bat for a single. His look showed that he firmly believed that he could take us to victory with no more damage. Then catastrophe struck…The ball was pitched in the middle stump up to him. He tried to whip it off his legs ( a perfectly acceptable shot) but missed the line to be bowled. His face as he left the field showed how he took all this…

Yeshpal had not played with Sandeep and I reassured him that ‘deep was one of the classical bats in the team. And sandeep did not disappoint and played every ball off the middle. When we needed 17 off 4 overs, Yeshpal decided (he later told me) that he will get the pressure off by hitting a four. And he got a perfect ball. A full toss on the off. Unfortunately he decided that he will tap it for a single and ended up doing neither. The ball popped up in the air and as it came down – both TCC’s hopes and the ball sank into the wicket keeper’s hands.

The last two batsman had not played cricket for a while and sandeep realizing this tried a suicidal run to get to the other end. He was literally stomping the ground as he walked off very disappointed in himself. Although he could have done little to prevent this, he was very upset with himself. The run was the only option we had. HP finished it off with Shami removing Sai’s stumps offf the first ball, to ensure HP’s victory by 17 runs.

Some thoughts:

There is absolutely no reason to hang our heads. We played our hearts out and came up slightly short. There was no finger pointing during our bowling – although we were getting smashed with folks always encouraging each other and congratulating one other after every wicket. We played well inspite of missing four of our players. Anand has atlast got his bowling back and Khalil has continued his batting consistency. Kalyan played very well for his 27- must be the new gloves/pads. Altogether an order of magnitude better than what we did against MCC. Lets keep this enthu and fun up.

Some questions for Vijay still remain: Where do damodar and ram go in? Their opening partnerships have been quite good- but are we better off sending them after from 2 down? The logic here is that they face a relatively old ball and the middle attack- spinners and medium pacers… Is TCC better off using them here? Well- that is for Vijay to munch on.

Altogether a stupendous performance guys- all we need to do is take care of our end of the bargain by winning the next two games. We should be home dry. We control our own destiny. With the next game being Damodar’s swan song for the regular season let us try to give him a victorious send off.