Monday, July 20, 2009

Game#8: Gladiators def Yorkers by 96 runs

Another good day of cricket for Gladiators, displaying their lethal bowling attack once again. Sent in to bat first, Gladiators posted a modest 166 with a danger of getting all out below 150. A sensible unbroken last wicket partnership of 20 took the score to a more respectable one. Earlier, Sameer and to some extent Imran were the only players making any impact with the bat. The highlight of the innings was the spell by the Yorkers' leggie Sandeep. It was a spell which despite being on the opposition, you had to stand and appreciate. He contained runs as well as took wickets and his spell of 4/18 in his 5 overs and was the main reason why most Gladiators could not get some easy runs. I must also mention their opening bowlers - Ravi and Rajesh who bowled with great heart in their opening spell.

Sameer batted extremely sensibly till he was Sandeeped. And yet again, another 40ish score. Its amazing that a batsman of his class hasn't really made a great impact in this tournament so far (averaging only 28 and not 50+ score!). Not that he has looked out of touch.. but he's got out to some strange shots, strange dismissals and strange umpiring decisions. Imran too played a handy knock to bail us out of a near collapse. But then, of course, we are better at averting dramatic collapses than our national teams back home.

Yorkers' batting lineup isn't the one to give shivers in your spine, but the bowlers still had to bowl well to contain them. M&M (you ought to know who I am talking about) bowled a super opening spell, yet again. The batsmen played and missed on a regular basis. Mohsin took one but Mansoor was unlucky to be wicketless. The bowlers that followed - YasirM, Imran, Mudit and Arpit - all bowled well and shared the remaining wickets. Oops.. not Arpit, who was unlucky to have 3 dropped catches in 1 over! And I was the criminal in 2 such occasions :D

In the end, a convincing victory as the entire Yorkers' team collapsed at a score of 70 making even 166 look like a very good score.

My bowlers of the day: No single one. Mohsin/Mansoor provided a great start and all of the remaining 4 bowled quite well too. So laurels shared.
My batsman of the day: Sameer (though I am seriously looking fwd to some more runs from him. But if you believe in the law of averages, then its good for us).
My fielder of the day: Ok, time for some fun : Mansoor (he dropped an easy one of Arpit's bowling, but took 2 good catches)
My man of the match: Imran (20 runs & bowling figures of 2.4-0-3-8)

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