Victory in a 35 overs match against Kaboom Cricket Club at PDTSA Ground, Boisar MIDC, Palghar, 10.30am, 27th Feb 2016

This was by far, the best ground I've played on in the last two years or so of my cricketing career….
Fantastic victory in today's game that we played at PDTSA Cricket Ground in Boisar, noteworthy performances by Neil, Mayank, Gautam and Rizwan with the ball and our Captain Niket along with Sashwat, Akash and Neil with the bat, other batsmen too played very well to take the team home.... well bowled, well fielded, well batted and well played to the whole team.... and might I say again FABULOUS FABULOUS FABULOUS FABULOUS ground....        
To those who missed out on playing at this FABULOUS ground.... you definitely missed a treat....
First up I want to commend Niket for organising this match at the PDTSA Ground, that although was so far away that maybe some had thoughts of backing out from, but as we discovered later was well worth the drive, I personally got a feel of how an international outfield might be like, and although the opportunity did not come, it would have been well worth diving esp while fielding and also batting during the match.... secondly I want to commend everyone who took the chance of driving/traveling all the way to play on this FABULOUS FABULOUS FABULOUS FABULOUS cricket ground.... for that effort itself I think everyone, including the opposition (although they turned up 1.30 hrs late....), deserves a 'MAN(s) of the MATCH' award.... thank you everyone for their presence........

I guess we all had an early start to the day... I myself was so excited about playing at the PDTSA Ground, having seen the photos of it few days ago.... I woke up around 5am and as I got ready, I also had the honor of giving a wake up call to our cricketing all rounder, yes the crown prince himself.... if you haven't got it yet, our Chief Information Officer, Ayaz Malik will be happy to shed some light on the same.... Anyways, we left bandra around and reached Andheri, where Akash picked us up and we were on the way to the ground.... enroute we encountered many Jugal-look-alikes as they raced past us at break-peck speeds, I say that, as they gave an impression of going fast but ended up going slightly fast if not slow.... kind of like someone saying that he/she went for a run, when all eye-witness accounts 'said' that he/she was 'Merely Slow-JOGGING'.... we reached at the ground at around 9am and at first sight were thrilled to be playing on such a well leveled outfield which had a leafy green color look to it.. every cm of it.... I guess that it helped that the ground was close to a water reservoir....
Our other team members reached the ground soon after and we were all ready to play by around 10, but the majority of the opposition team reached around 10.20 and we could only start the game at around 10.30am....
We lost the toss and were asked to bowl.... which was not to our teams liking and to be frank, I remember in the team discussion, I was the only one to suggest that the ball would definitely do a bit in the first few overs and given the good quality of the ball and our bowlers we could even pull that advantage to about 20 overs.... but that idea was disregarded and we thankfully we lost the toss and we bowled.... Neil and Rizwan started our bowling with Neil bowling an immaculate and highly accurate line and length to the batsmen.. of the 7 overs he bowled, he gave away 17 runs and bowled 36 dot balls and out of these, he maybe beat the batsmen (one in particular, the opener) 30 odd times, the quality of the ball.... combined with the quality of the bowling ensured that the batsmen never gained an upper hand and maybe lost most of their confidence in the first 20 odd overs itself.... I think Neil is at the top of his bowling form and that's not good news for any batsman facing him....
Rizwan had a forgettable first over and bowled a 12 ball over, with 6 wides and if it had not been for the fantastic and at times acrobatic wicket keeping by Akash, throughout the match, we could well have been chasing a total of more than 250 runs.... I remember, I was standing close to a 2nd slip position and one ball in that 2nd over can straight at me and Akash dived to his right and came up with it.... that's some serious wickekeeping.... Rizwan was taken off and came back later towards the end of the innings and bowled a wonderful spell and kept the batsmen quiet when the slog was on.... a truly great comeback it was.... Chintu and Gautam also had a decent spell of bowling in between them and did a reasonably good job, keeping the scores in check.... in the middle overs, Mayank bowled a beautiful spell, he bowled to field and the captain also backed him up nicely by setting aggressive fields and to his credit Mayank didn't bowl any loose balls and ended up giving 32 in his spell of 7 overs.... As we were short of spinning options, I was asked to fill in and in the 31st over, I took 2 wickets and gave away only 3 runs, the next over although was a forgettable over with a 6 coming off the first ball and the next 2 balls which went straight to the fielder's posted on the boundary, were somehow allowed to go to the boundary and it eventually went for 22 runs.... we kept the total down to 226/5 in 35
I remember someone made a remark on the group that the target was maybe on the higher side.... and I also remembered that in our previous game, we had chased down a similar target, although we had 40 overs to chase it dowm….
We had ordered for lunch from a local restaurant - 'Silver Avenue' and they even sent us Fiber plates cups and SS spoons and also a waiter to serve the food, the owner himself came to the ground and supervised the 'lunch'.... I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone going there.... The quality of food was also very nice

We started our chase with myself and Sitanshu as openers.... the opposition captain set a very aggressive field with 3 slips and a gully, a packed off side field.... first ball of the innings was a good length ball slightly outside the off stump and I just lent into it and punched it in the gap between cover and point, I didn't know how well I'd hit it till I saw the ball racing away to the boundary.... the next few balls were bowled at good length on the stumps and I was happy to defend them.... the next over was bowled by bowler, with a slinging action, very Malinga like and the ball was also very quick.... Sitanshu was on strike for that over and although he nicked one first up and was put down by the keeper, he played the rest of the balls quite well, letting alone one or two of them.. the next over I saw the bowler (who had a long run up, the same one who bowled the first over....) rolling the fingers onto the ball.... I took him for a boundary, a two the next ball and then another boundary towards midwicket.... I think having seen how the ball was moving around in our innings and the huge number of extras we gave away, they thought it was better to not let the ball swing too much and bowl one side of the wicket and keep the runs/scoring shots down.... but maybe they disregarded our counterattacking abilities.... with the score at 14/0 in 3, The next over we got 8 runs and the score started to move on.... they brought in a bowling change from the other end with a Hashim Amla look'alike skiddy kind of bowler, again I hit a couple of boundaries and a two, Sitanshu was on strike for the next over and the bowler who bowled the first over, switched ends to bowl from this one.... Sitanshu this time advanced down the track and hit him for back to back boundaries and got me on strike, and out of nowhere, I had a lapse in concentration and played a halfhearted lofted shot to a slower ball and only managed to scoop it high at mid-on where the fielder took a decent catch.... I was kicking myself for the next few minutes, for having thrown it away.... Akash came in next and just as he was settling in, Sitanshu got out to a good 'caught and bowled' to the same bowler who got me out.... suddenly from 42/0 in the 6th over, we were reduced to 50/2 in 8th....
Sashwat joined Akash in the middle and the spinners came on.... something we missed in our innings maybe, but to our defence, we didn't have any full time spinners.... Akash and Sashwat settled in nicely and started milking the bowlers for runs, esp Akash, who played such a well-controlled and crafty innings.... he didn't play a false shot in his entire innings and to my mind deserved a 50, but he got out to a ball that held up on the pitch and he was almost through his shot when it arrived and he ended up giving a gentle catch back to the bowler.... yes, the same one who opened the innings in their batting and played and missed more than 30 balls from Neil.... Sashwat didn't waste much time in defending the ball and went for his shots almost every opportunity but although the shots had a good sound to them.... the ball barely made it towards the boundary and he got 3 or 4 lives, two of which went for a 6 and a 4.... he rode his luck a bit too much and got out just when we were getting in control of the game.... Niket came in a bit earlier and had a nice bit of partnership with Akash till Akash was out as mentioned earlier.... at 136/4 the match was nicely poised with Niket who was already in his groove having played some nice cover drives and off drives.... Neil joined him in the middle and suddenly the scoring rate went up.... both of them started attacking the bowlers and before they knew what hit them, the game was almost gone.... sitting pretty at 209/4 in 29th Niket retired, in trying to give everyone a chance to bat.... Akshay was in next and was out bowled first ball the next ball a single and suddenly Neil was out LBW again, 210/6.... Rizwan was the next batsman in and after taking a single of the first ball, he too got out LBW, maybe playing back to a ball he should have played forward to.... and when Vipul was given out LBW, we were in dire straits 220/8 with 7 runs to win and many overs left.... Some drama followed which I would prefer better to not mention and Niket, who had retired earlier came back and played a delightful cover drive to complete his 50 and take us to victory........ a well-deserved end to the match....
Kudos to the whole team, well bowled, well fielded, well batted and Well Played
I think there were 2 important partnerships in our batting, one between Akash and Sashwat and the second one between Niket and Neil, that swung the match our way.... but more than anything it was the bowling and fielding that made the chase possible.... as a batsman I know how much of a task it is chasing a total close to 300 and a par score like this one.... thank you for a truly wonderful game of cricket.... see you next time

Victory in a 40 overs match against Oberoi Cricket Club at Oberoi International School Ground, Goregaon (E), 10am, 20th Feb 2016

First up, I want to point out that, I'm totally against 'fixing' the match(s) with umpires.... and maybe as it turned out yesterday, the deep anguish one feels at having lost despite /inspite of all the so called umpiring 'antics....' (maybe even part of team 'tactics/strategy….) was clearly visible, when I shook hands with the opposition captain.... it was as if someone had given him a OTS.... 'One TIGHT SLAP........' And I'll leave it at that, the team that played BEST, won yesterday and I'll happily take that, maybe even holding it up in 'World Cup Triumph' celebratory style.... an absolutely fantastic and hard earned victory with no quarters given.... well played to the whole team and WELL PLAYED again
We lost the toss and bowled first on a wicket with a lot of green cover on it, but as we had experienced the previous time, when we played here (almost a year ago....) it was good for batting with the ball coming onto the bat nicely.... our bowlers were into the act right away, with Neil getting two wickets off his first over with absolute beauty of a delivery(ies) both going away as they nicked the bat and the second one esp was good catch by the keeper Vishal, diving to his right side, as he came up with the ball.... Amit came in first change and got a wicket in his first over to a ball that surprised the batsman with its pace and bounce, and he edged it for a catch to first slip, where yours truly, did the needful.... With 3 wickets down the opposition needed a partnership and the opening batsman along with the batsman, who came in at the fall of the 3rd wicket, did just that…. as they settled in, they started playing some nice shots, realising that there wasn't much in it for the quick bowlers, we brought on our spinners, with Vishal and Rahul, Vishal came in for a bit of stick earlier, but came back well to finish off his spell and some nice bit of field placing by Neil got us some important wickets.... Rahul bowled a beautiful line and was rewarded for a wonderful spell of spin bowling, with 3 wickets, and finished off with an economical spell of 8-0-32-3, Vishal also came back well with 8-0-51-3. At one stage they were 139/3 in 20 but with the spinners on, they were reduced to 172/9 in 29.... the lower order then rallied, thanks to some wayward bowling by our next change bowlers and it was thanks largely to the bowling change that we made, with Mangesh wrapping up the innings with two wickets in just one over that he bowled.... leaving us a target of 226 to chase in 40....

We opened our batting with myself and Vishal and were off to a good start, with 11 coming off the 1st over, that included a "bowlers back drive" by yours truly, that went for four, right behind the stumps at the non strikers end.... In the 3rd over, Vishal was given out LBW, to a muted appeal, where the ball struck clearly outside the line of the off stumps just outside the crease and was climbing, as it struck the top flap of the left batting pad.... I even heard the opposition team members saying, "out nahi thaa, par mil gayaa....". Sanket was in next and the runs kept flowing till he opened the face of the bat to a full pitched ball, which he could have played towards the covers for a boundary but ended up as simple catch in the hands of point.... we were 42/2 in 5 overs when Neil walked in, with the spinners on and field spread out, we rotated the strike and consolidated the score nicely, Neil was unlucky to be denied a six, as it hit the branch of a tree outside the ground and fell back inside, and all we got for it was 1 run.... maybe if it were to happen in the 1st innings, it could well have been a six.. but that's another story.... with the scoring rate slowing down, I started taking some chances and in the process, got stumped, with the keeper standing up to a medium pacer, to a ball bowled down the leg side as I lost my balance trying to play a flick towards squareleg.... we were 78/2 in the 13th over and Neil followed soon after, given out LBW to what sounded like two distinct sounds.... Akshay and Mangesh then batted well and occupied the crease, more than anything.... both played very sensibly and consolidated the score till both got out in quick succession and at 121/6 the match was just about to slip away.... but we were confident as we batted all the way down.... Amit and Sachin had a good 41 runs partnership in 9 overs to take us closer to the target and at that time we had the upper hand with 3 more all rounders yet to come.... Sachin got out to a ball he swept, that maybe bounced higher than he imagined would and instead of playing it fine, he ended up top-edging it to deep squareleg for a simple catch.... Ayaz then went in and after getting 5 wide runs off the first ball of a new spell, was trapped LBW, to a ball he could've played forward to by keeping the pads out of the way, as he was already aware of the background.... Rahul was next in and was clean bowled to the same quickish off spinner, again guilty of playing back to a ball he should've played forward to.... at this point, with 9 wickets down, the game was all but gone.... Amit was batting well at one end, but the other batsmen somehow kept getting out and if it had not been for the level headed batting display of Pradeep, we would have surely lost this game.... But to our whole teams delight and guided well by Amit himself, he played a splendid innings, running the quick one's, two's, three's and also a couple of four's.... such was the solidity of the partnership that it looked more of a middle order partnership than a lower order one.... things got so desparate at a point that even the umpire joined in to keep score for the home team.... but it was not to be their day.... in the end the 'BEST TEAM of THE DAY' WON........ Well played, Well played, Well played and WELL PLAYED

My man of the match for his under pressure knock of 53 off 56 balls is Amit Sawant
Thanks for coming and playing such a beautiful game of cricket Have a nice weekend