The junoon to play cricket in the two teams on ground was commendable. Wet outfield, overcast conditions - it would have been a fair decision to call off the match. But instead, players from both teams tried their level best to steal a game out. Fortunately the outfield was playable but the major problem was the pitch. The pitch was checked for bounce and it wasn't pathetic and hence acceptable :) . Krish from Wildcards use a coffee cup to pour water out of the pools of water around the pitch. Guys went to buy cat litter to pour and fill the pools around the pitch. Once that was done, and as soon as it seemed possible that bowlers can just somehow run in and ball, we had a toss. Sameer going in to toss in the absence of Imran (gone to buy cat litter) proudly lost it yet again. As expected, Wildcards elected to field. The match was reduced to 20 overs a side.
Ahsan failed yet again as an opener, this time finding the strangest of ways to get out - hit-wicket. He slipped trying to pull a ball and lost his balance on a completely muddy pitch, and hit the wicket with his bat. Mudit and Yasir played sensibly to see out their opening bowlers - Irshad (a former Gladiator) and Owais (a former Ranji player for J&K). Both gave a few loose balls but were tight in general. Both the bowlers completed their quota at a stretch and after 8 overs, Gladiators were a healthy 45/1 with Yasir doing the bulk of the scoring till then.
The quality of bowling dipped a little after the first spell by Irshad and Owais. Sensing this, Gladiators looked to up the scoring rate. YasirB got out trying this and Sameer joined Mudit. Mudit got out yet again to a 35+ (but below 50 score) immediately after scoring a couple of sixes over covers. The beauty of Gladiators' innings was that always one of the batsmen at the crease was taking the responsibility to keep the runs flowing. First it was YasirB's hits, then Mudit hit out a few shots when Sameer was getting set at the crease. When Asghar joined Sameer at Mudit's dismissal, we witnessed a small (from Sameer's standard) butchering of the bowlers - 5 sixes and racing to 40 in just 16 balls. Then when he got out and Imran went in, Asghar continued from where he left on the previous inning's bowler-killing spree. He too scored a good 40 of 15 balls before getting out caught at the right at the boundary - a good catch by Owais, who looked like the only player in their team who could have taken the catch. Earlier, Wildcards had spilled 4 catches, all regulation, in a wild display of fielding. Finally Imran played sensibly till the end to ensure the score reaches a strong 186/7 in 20 overs. It was a good total considering the wet pitch and the outfield. A good team effort, with three scores of 40 in the middle order and two 20s. But I must give due (dis)credit to the bowlers who consistently bowled either fulltosses or short to help our batsmen reach the total. Again, it just required our bowlers to not screw up too badly to reach the 6th win of the tournament.
Ankur and Owais opened for Wildcards and they used the pace of M&M to play some shots. Both the pacers had some problems in their runup because of the wet pitch. Despite this they bowled at a lively pace, but the deadly accuracy that they have shown in the last few matches was missing. After 6 overs, Wildcards were nearly 45/0. Imran made the first bowling change and it worked immediately. Imran took a juggling catch at long-off of Mudit's bowling to get rid of Ankur. Mudit took another wicket (c&b) in his next over and put a brake on the runrate. Imran brought himself next and took the wicket of the dangerous Vinod in his over, thanks to a fine catch by Afzal at midwicket. While wickets were tumbling at one end, Owais continued to keep hitting at one end. Eventually, he got out to Imran but only after a good 60+ with few good out of the park hits over mid-wicket and resulting in a few lost balls. Arpit got his first chance at bowling, and bowled the 18th and 20th over. After a couple of balls, he found his line and length with the wet and hard-to-grip ball. He bowled some beautiful leggie stuff, and got two wickets for his efforts.
In the end, it was a good team effort yet again. A collective batting effort followed by some good fielding and good collective bowling sealed the 6th victory for Gladiators. The fielding was good throughout too, despite a slippery outfield.
My Bowler of the day: Imran (taking 3 wickets including the dangerous Vinod and Owais)
My Fielder of the day: Sameer (wonderful keeping despite the slippery ground and uneven bounce from the wet pitch)
My Batsmen of the day: Sameer (40 of 17 balls) & Asghar (40 of 16 balls) -play a little faster guys!!
My Man of the match: (close one) Sameer
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