It was a puddle of mud, perhaps more suitable for Woodstock than a cricket match

MIT - Part II

(By: Nafis Ahmad, Commonwealth C.C)

It was a puddle of mud, perhaps more suitable for Woodstock than a cricket match. The rains of the day before had rendered the CCC ground almost unplayable. But many bags of mulch, dirt and a concerted effort by the team had us going right around the scheduled time. The intensity with which the ground was prepared, showed the desire of CCC to have a completed game against MIT. The last league encounter being a washout, it was imperative to get this one going. On the other hand MIT, still in search of that elusive win this season, and having always performed admirably against CCC, were also eager to get on with it.

Fazal (rather his deputy, Ali) lost the toss and we saw MIT open with Praveen Tailam and Yasir Iqbal. The latter was soon runout due to a mixup, and was replaced by Hemant Verma, who scored a half-century in our last meeting and was rightfully in an aggressive mood. But by then Sameer had a firm control over line and length and had him caught behind while he was still at 7. The MIT captain, Vinnay Kanitkar, got on to the crease and started to bat with ease. He had a 43 run partnership with Praveen, who from the other end was chipping away towards a decent score. The introduction of spin in the form of Rudy Jaglal (welcome Rudy) proved lethal for Vinnay (20), who soon departed, top- edging Rudy, into the safe hands of Tariq Butt.

MIT were 70 for 3 at the around the 20 over mark. After drinks, Praveen (39) who had seen all 20 of those overs chanced his arm against Rudy and was comfortably caught by Ghazanfer at long off. He batted well for his runs and was particularly severe on Fazal, hitting him for a six and a four in an over. At this point MIT started to rebuild their innings around Deepak and Nirnay, the former hitting the ball firmly and the latter placing and running hard to give the other, the strike. The strategy paid of and they had the longest partnership for MIT (61 runs), at which time Suresh departed after making a courageous 54. He hit the slow bowlers to all parts of the ground, and was particularly severe on Rudy, who was otherwise bowling well. The rest of the tail added some valuable runs and got MIT to a decent 170 for 7 in the allotted 40 overs.

The bowling from CCC was adequate and certainly not stellar. The exceptions were Sameer (7-2-17-1) and Ali (8-0-31-2). Rudy, considering that it was his first bowl after a year, was very good in his first seven overs and was only compromised in his last over where Deepak distorted his figures. Sameer was excellent and almost impossible to get away. He is getting into his rhythm and his form will be crucial for us in the coming weeks.

CCC started the chase with Basu and Natraj, both starting well and hitting some good boundaries. Natraj was particularly strong off his legs, flicking to perfection at times, but overdid it and was bowled by Amit for a brisk 20. Basu (21) followed suit immediately, and we had Ali and Fazal at the crease. The 3^rd wicket partnership posted 55 runs, mostly from the big bat of Fazal (42), who was brilliantly caught by Jawad off a miscued drive. Nafis joined Ali but was back before bothering the scorer. Ali took command of the situation and thumped some good boundaries off of Khalid before falling victim to the same bowler off another attempt at the maximum.

CCC were123 at the fall of Ali (28), and still had 47 runs to go with four wickets in hands. This is where the true character and depth of CCC batting came to fore – Dave batting at number 7 and Rudy at number 8, batted sensibly and took the game away from MIT who were rightfully hoping at one stage of the game. Rudy hit some big boundaries to finish at 24 not out and Dave played very sensibly for his 25, and finished the game with a tall, straight six in the 38^th over of the innings.

The result from the game was reassuring for CCC, and the six resulting points were very welcome. It was a consistent display of batting with many batsmen scoring 20+ runs. There was no panic or flustering at any stage of the CCC innings, and we achieved the target comfortably. Our bowling has strengthened due to the inclusion of Rudy, and with Sameer bowling as well as he is, it seems that we are on the right trek. However, to have any higher aspirations in the tournament, the rest of our bowling and fielding has to keep pace with our batting.