Match Report: Team Victory & Lessons Learned

To start with, it is worth mentioning that almost the entire team was at the ground an hour before the game. Outstanding commitment!

Toss was very critical as this was a morning game; wet pitch was a big indication to win the toss and bowl first. Unfortunately, we lost the toss and were put into bat by the opposition. In the team huddle, our discussion was to dominate the game by scoring singles and doubles and punishing the loose balls. Even though we were batting first, we set a 180+ target for our batsmen to put pressure on the opposition.

The opposition was a spin-heavy team and as expected, they started their bowling with spin and did not introduce pace until the powerplay. Kartik bhai and Aryan were sent in to dominate the PP. Kartik bhai started with a six in the second over, but then fell victim to the slow spin of Heer Patel. Srikanth went in to consolidate and just as he started to settle, he fell victim to a terrible umpire call of caught behind. The ball was gripping and turning throughout the game. Alok followed Srikanth in an attempt to accelerate. At this point, we were 25-3 in 4 overs. Like I said, it was a good toss to win for the opponents-this was a bowler’s paradise.

Ansh went in and started consolidating with Aryan. Both of them were looking good and right after they took the team score past 50, we lost Ansh-54-4 in 8.4 overs. The opposition thought they would have us wrapped up below 100, but they did not know that Aryan was set and just needed someone to stay and bat with him. Walks in Rushi… with 11.2 overs still remaining to bat, he did exactly what Aryan needed-stayed with him.

While Aryan was doing his thing at one end, Rushi's batting was like slow poison for the opposition. The first symptom was fielders getting tired because of the right-left combination constantly requiring them to change fields. The second symptom was shhhhhhh… pin drop silence in the ground. Aryan and Rushi just shushed the team that was all chirpy until the first 8.4 overs. Then in the 14th over until the 20th, we just broke the opposition by scoring 106 runs in the last 7 overs. Aryan's scorecard might say he’s 8 short of the 100, but the quality of his knock on a difficult track was beyond a century, and he was very well supported by Rushi's half-century.

Aryan fell in the 19.2nd over with the score at 179-5. The opposition thought our tail was exposed, but out goes Aiyaz bhai and the first ball he faces, he goes down the pitch and over the bowler’s head for a straight boundary. We were not done. There were 3 more balls to go, and on the 6th ball of the 20th over, Aiyaz and Rushi ran 3-they ran like someone running in their early 20s!

Overall, we knew we had the score we wanted: 187.

While the opposition was spin heavy, our strength was our pace attack followed by two quality spin bowlers. We had bowlers like Rahul, Kartik bhai, and Akshay waiting in the back just in case we needed consolidation. Discussion in the huddle was simple: take your catches and, importantly, do not give them boundaries-stop everything you can to the best of your ability.

Govind started well with the first over and put the hard hitters like Sahil and Azeem under pressure. This is where things started going south for us: we dropped Sahil in the first over and the dropped catches continued. It is unlike our character and something that needs to be addressed immediately-we have to start holding onto our catches. Bowlers work hard and need to be supported by fielders in stopping runs and taking catches. Overall, I think we dropped about 15 catches.

One guy who was not going to drop anything coming his way was Ansh. He took a blinder in the 4th over to get rid of the dangerous Sahil. After Sahil, Azeem and the #3 batsman kept hitting hard and we continued dropping catches. Their #3 batsman was in tremendous form (150+ runs the previous week). We needed to put brakes on the scoring while their powerplay batting was in full flow, assisted by our poor performance in the field. Our pace attack did well, but our fielders lacked-something we need to improve going forward.

Overs 7 to 14 were very critical. With the opposition going after our pace attack, we immediately introduced our spin bowling for straight 8 overs to get hold on scoring. Ansh and Rushi did that. While we continued to drop catches (to an extent where it was frustrating), Aryan took a catch to dismiss Azeem on Rushi's bowling and then Ansh dismissed #4 by getting the LBW. Ansh and Rushi both bowled us back into the game and now it was about finishing strong.

With 6 overs remaining, walks in Akhil on one end with his 3 overs and Krishna and Govind with 2 and 1 over remaining respectively. They needed about 70 runs in the last 6 overs. Akhil must have bowled one of the best spells of 3 overs-he choked them from one end. We knew the batsmen would go after Krishna and Govind, but Krishna, out of his remaining 2 overs, bowled an amazing 16th over. I think overs 15, 16, 17 gave them just 20 odd runs, which meant in the last 3 overs they needed 50 odd runs.

It was at this moment we knew they were under pressure and we could win this game if we stopped boundaries and didn't let them hit too many sixes. But the opposition was not done-they targeted Krishna in the 18th over. Akhil again pounced back in the 19th over, giving Govind 33 runs to defend in the last over. This is when hell broke loose: they scored a boundary off the first ball followed by 5 wides… 24 needed off 5 balls. Then 1 single… 23 off 4 balls. Followed by two 6's in the next two balls… GAME ON.

Two balls, 11 runs needed. Govind bowled the 5th ball, which was traveling for almost another 6 towards cow corner, but Ansh was manning that area-he plucked that ball out of thin air to dismiss their last hope, Nasik Khan. 11 needed from 1 ball. Don’t bowl extras and the game is ours. 6th ball went for 0 run and that’s how we won.

Overall, if we held onto our catches, we would have wrapped them up for 130 or so-something we all will get better at in the following games. But it’s worth mentioning that our batsmen did a fantastic job to get us to 187, followed by our bowlers who were all amazing. We should have won this game by 50+ runs if we held onto our catches. Let’s focus on getting better there.

I know some of us didn’t get to contribute towards this victory in bowling or batting-your time will come. Good start to the season in batting and bowling. Let’s keep this momentum for the next must-win game against Knight Riders.