Myself and Sanat had a wonderful opening partnership on a
wicket that was very difficult to bat on and due to the excessive smog and poor
lighting at the ground, things were even more difficult…. I think we kept our
wit's, didn't throw away our wickets, punished the bad balls, took our chances
and most importantly (despite all the difficult playing conditions mentioned
above) didn't let ourselves get bogged down by the plays and misses. Even the
umpire appreciated or efforts, and added that given the conditions, no
international level player would even agree to play in such poor conditions....
Around the 100 mark, we even discussed if we should retire and give others a
chance to bat, but given the difficult conditions, we decided it was better to
bat a few more overs and only retire one of us, so that even if there were new
batsmen at one end, one of us would take charge and keep the score moving....
this proved to be the right decision, as during the course, our wickets fell in
a heap, and although we were right on top, at 122/0 after 13, despite having
wickets in hand, we could manage only 160/9, with the 9th wicket falling off
the last ball. Sanat made 64 in 50 balls and myself 53 in 41 balls retired.
But all this was just the beginning of what was to come next, this was only the intro with credits, the whole movie and the plot both unfolded and thickened, the home team were confident of chasing down the target and somehow, the conditions that were in favor of the bowling team, now started favoring the batsmen, we started with Paliwal and Neil, and Paliwal was a bit wayward and came in for some stick, but Neil bowled an immaculate and highly probing line and length and beat the batsmen almost every second ball…. if one were to compare or draw a reference, in simple words, his bowling was very Anderson-like, his first wicket was to a perfect out-swinger and I was happy to accept the knick offered by the batsman, he didn't get many wickets but left the a huge dent in the batsmen('s) confidence.... the first change bowlers were Sunny and Umar and Sunny in particular, benefited by Neil's spell, he got two wickets in two overs, Umar, as always bowled very accurately and was unlucky that a few of edges went for runs.... the asking rate by then was more than 10 RPO and the opposition then put together a decent partnership, till it was broken by one man, yes, our very own Jonty Rhodes…. the batsman played the ball in the gap at squareleg and ran the first one hard and it seemed like they would complete a relatively easy two but as they turned for the second run, this cheetah-like figure emerged, pounced on the ball with one hand, hurled it at "Typhoon Katrina"-like speed at the batting end and DESTROYED the wickets, to leave the runner frustratingly and annoyingly stranded, HALF way down the pitch...... as the batsman walked away, one could almost hear the fielder saying "take THAT, you son of a B...." After that it was the turn of our spinners, Aashish and Ayaz to choke the opposition batsmen, and that, they did, of course, helped by 3/4 brilliant run outs by yours truly.... in the last over they needed 12 and the first two balls that Paliwal bowled were plain simple horrible and both went for boundaries, leaving them with 4 off 4, Umar then had a word with Paliwal and in the next 3 balls, we have only 1 run, that left them with 3 to get off the final ball and yours truly ran out the batsman without giving away any runs.
Fantastic team effort and even more sweet the victory.... From behind the wickets, it was very difficult job keeping and the way the ball was moving and skidding, keeping low, taking off from some spots, I think even Saha would've refused to do the job here, but yours truly once again did a decent job, especially since there were some huuuuuuuuge wides and wicket keeper yorkers.... Despite the highly uneven and grassless outfield, compounded by the poor visibility, our fielder's did a great job, and kept our bowlers on top, Gaurav, Ayaz, Sanat, Umar, Nishant, Neil, Jugal, Aashish, fielded very well throughout the game........
Thanks for a memorable and amazing match, well played team
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