Sunday, August 15, 2010

Close Shave

14 August 2010, IISc Gymkhana Ground, Bangalore: In a dramatic finish to their second match of this year's KSCA Metro Shield, IISc snatched a narrow two-wicket victory against Gary Cricketers. After doing all the good work on the field to bundle out the visitors for 161, IISc failed to string together partnerships but finally reached the target thanks to a responsible knock of 44 from Vikram.

The highlight of IISc's bowling effort, was Debajit's spell of 19-3-58-4. The figures speak for themselves. Opening the attack with Teja (11-0-55-2), he turned in a marathon spell of nineteen overs unchanged from the SAC end. Arindam also picked up a couple of wickets. But the two standout - nay, inspirational - moments of the innings were Varun's acrobatic catch at gully and Dibyendu's direct hit from the deep. Those brilliant fielding efforts broke the visitors' best two partnerships in the match.

162 was a tricky, if not daunting, target. IISc kept finding ways to lose wickets at regular intervals. While most of the top five were dismissed with not too much on the board, Vikram played an innings that was an ideal blend of caution and aggression. He held his end up and attacked whenever the opportunity presented itself. Once he departed, IISc were reduced to 127/8. But the ninth-wicket duo of Lalit (19*) and Teja (9*) knocked off the required runs under tense circumstances to take IISc home. The last partnership of 35* ended up being the highest partnership of the innings. That conveys cues to what IISc should be working on before their next match.

Brief Scores:
Gary Cricketers - 161 allout in 43.1 overs
(Ashish 29, David 25, Gaurav 24, Uttam 26, Debajit 4/58, Arindam 2/35, Teja 2/55)
IISc - 162/8 in 40.3 overs
(Arindam 23, Vikram 44, David 3/37)

Result: IISc won by 2 wickets
Man-of-the-match: Debajit Sarma

Newspaper Reports:
"Deccan Herald"  
"Times of India"

4 comments:

  1. Can sense the thrill and the tension that would have been palpable throughout that unbeaten partnership.

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  2. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/89709/bhavani-bhille-shine.html

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  3. @ sidhantapatnaik
    You are dead right. It was a tense period. Nobody was allowed to move or change positions in our pavilion ;-)

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  4. @ Sounik
    Thanks for providing the Deccan Herald link. I have added it at the end of the post.

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