On 17th June, Team B played against Marrickville Frosty Bears at very beautiful but a remote place in Cobbitty. As planned, we chose to field first after winning the toss. Vinay and Amit started well with their spell followed by Mithun and Harry. Bowlers were containing and keeping the pressure up as a result we got the first breakthrough in the form of run out when opponent were on 54. After that all our bowlers just squizzed the opponent with line and lengths.
We saw a minor threat from their opener who scored 34 but we managed to get him out lbw right when he started to look a bit dangerous.
After that, wickets kept falling regularly and all bowlers – Vinay, Amit, Abhi, Vicky, Mithun and Harry chipped in with a wicket or two.
Special mention to Abhi on his spell of 4 overs. He consistently got the bounce and kept the line on the 5th off stump to generate a lot of false shots followed by 2 nicks. One of that unfortunately dropped by me. Abhi followed that with 2 great catches in the gully. First of those was a catch of the match with him forward diving to take a stunner.
As a result, Marrickville were all out for 118.
In the reply, we made two changes to the batting order. Amit to open with Binod and Sameer to bat down the order. Marrickville had 2 really good teenaged bowlers in their armory. Those 2 created some pressure and soon drew the first blood by taking out Amit on a well directed bouncer. Next came in Abhi. Abhi kept his calm and absorbed the pressure showing his maturity once again. He gave superb counter attacking blows by hitting beautiful 4 and 6 in an over. However, their openers kept firing good line and lengths to pick next 3 wickets soon. Binod got out LBW. It soon followed by Mithun who dragged one in on the stumps, followed by Vivek in the same over who got bowled out to an excellent dipping yorker. We seemed to be in a bit of pickle with 4 down in quick time with only 40 odd in first 8 overs.
But this was to change soon with the next man to the crease, Sameer, the Wall. Sameer and Abhi kept the score ticking and taking on the bowlers at very opportunity provided. It seemed like done deal with those calm heads in the middle but out of no where Abhi got out to one odd paced bumper by a new bowler. Surprising every one. Abhi made beautiful 23 off 35. Next came in the man in form, Harry. Harry and Semeer had a good partnership. Harry continued from where he left from his last innings. Cruising through. But sadly he got out with well made 26 in just 25 to a similar bouncer from the same bowler while trying to hit to the leg side. Vicky got in but got out soon LBW to a full pitched one as setting Sun started to trouble batsmen hitting right in the eyes. We were still about 20 away from victory. Vinay walked in as a last batter. He got out first ball. We still needed 11.
Now, it was all dependent on Sameer, the last man standing on the crease. He showed his class by patiently leaving the good ones and waiting for the right scoring opportunities. In the end, he gave 2 knock out blows with superb boundries to get us over the line in the nail biting finish.
It was a superb team effort. We could have made there easily in the chase had those first 4 top order wickets not fallen so quickly. Something to improve going forward. For now, lets enjoy this win and a big round of applause for our top performers in this game – Abhi, Harry and the Wall, Sameer :).
More wins to follow from here on.
