It was the showdown that TCC
was eagerly waiting for having faced an ignominious defeat in the league phase
against the same opponents. ANZACs, the
number one team in the league thus far were going into this match with a 10-1
record and hence weren’t breaking a sweat, but little did they know that the
rug would be pulled under their feet.
As for the ground conditions, Shiloh was looking lush green after the
grass had been mowed a couple of days ago, but there was plenty of dew on the
surface. Thanks to Dave Kumar and Samay
Vithalani (RCC) for officiating our match.
ANZ won the toss and decided
to bowl first as expected. Parth and
Hugh opened the bowling as usual and were their usual restrictive selves not
willing to give any freebies. TCC’s
openers Ravi Renga and Raman kept their cool, being content to rotate the
strike while looking for the odd boundary.
The score trickled along nicely to 48 without loss off 12 overs when
Raman nicked an off-cutter from Deepesh into Shekar’s hands at slip. Samir Tikare and Ravi put their heads down
and carried the score on to 121. Ravi
a.k.a TCC’s Jayasuriya was a treat to watch flicking and pulling bad balls away
with utter disdain. A rasping pull for
four off Simon will be remembered for sometime ‘cos the ball disappeared into
the boundary. It was really nice to see
Samir back in his elements. A straight
six off Ketan was an example of sheer timing.
Samir fell when the score read 121 in trying to sweep Sunil, ANZ’s
offie. Aravind joined Ravi and the pair
took the score to 138 when Ravi was unfortunately run out trying a second
run. But, he had helped TCC with a
well-compiled 71. Aravind launched into
the bowling with one of his customary pulls almost making the railroad
tracks. Rajesh U. was also trying to
accelerate the score at the other end.
Aravind and Rajesh fell eventually and some good bowling in the death
overs saw TCC lose quick wickets. 5
wickets fell with just 20 odd runs added!
I should say that we were denied at least 20-25 runs ‘cos the ball
stopped just shy of the boundary many times thanks to the heavy outfield.
After the usual 30-min
break, we started defending our total.
Parth and Satbir opened the innings for ANZ. Aravind and Sundar shared the new ball for us. Aravind beat both batsmen all ends up and in
one over Satbir fished at the ball 5 consecutive times and still managed to be
there. Parth was watching the ball
carefully and was content rotating the strike.
Satbir tonked a six off Sundar and was starting to look menacing when
Hari got him caught by Raman at deep squareleg. Satbir, in trying to pull was beaten by the pace of the ball and
the ball just ballooned to Raman.
Shekar didn’t last long and was yorked by one of Hari’s express deliveries. Parth and Ketan played out a few overs with
the latter being lucky when Ravi Renga dropped a sitter at midon. ANZ would have been in a deeper mire had
that been held. Raajeev Kalyan was the
unlucky bowler. Parth started to open
up. A square-drive off Hari rocketed
away with none of the fielders needing to move. Just when the match was starting to get away, Vijay broke ANZ’s
back by dismissing Parth. The ball sped
along the ground catching Parth completely off guard and he looked in total dismay. Ketan faced the same fate in Vijay’s next
over. As they say, you need a slice of
luck as well along with all the hard work and we definitely got it! The rest of the batsmen couldn’t do much
damage since we had them reeling under immense pressure. Panda was run out, courtesy an excellent
throw from the deep by Raman. This
report wouldn’t be complete without a mention for Dhanraj Uchil. Uchil has been absolutely outstanding this
season for TCC. He is the utility
cricketer that we boast of. He mixed
his leg spinners beautifully and tied ANZ up in knots. Raman juggled and held on to Shaluka off
Uchil while Aravind exemplified what great catching in the deep is all
about. The catch he took to dismiss
Sunil was superb ‘cos that could so easily have been a six. Uchil finished off with great figures that
read 5.2-0-14-5. He richly deserved the
MoM award. TCC won by a whopping 64 runs and will now face CLCC in the semi-finals at Reedy Creek in Charlotte. Great
going team!
- Vijay Jagannath.