TCC beat defending champs HPCC in a close encounter

Team TCC turned in a champion performance and defeated HPCC in convincing fashion on Sunday at the Hobson's cricket grounds in Climax, NC. Thanks to Murtuza and Manzoor from PACC for their excellent unbiased umpiring and to our very own Nataraj for traveling all the way with the team and helping out as a scorer / substitute.

We had expected a washout given the continuous drizzle all through the journey, but thanks to the marvelous drainage system at the ground, they weren't too many puddles to worry about. HPCC won the toss and elected to bat regardless of the slippery conditions. It turned out to be a good toss to lose, but gripping the ball turned out to be an uphill task. Manzoor and Bilal opened the batting for HPCC and were content in accumulating runs rather than going for the usual aggression that they are accustomed to. They seemed to be carrying on well against Amar and Aravind. Amar was unlucky to see a scorching pull from Manzoor go straight through Shibu's hands at square-leg. Vijay was brought in as the first change bowler resulting in an unexpected breakthrough. Manzoor charged down the pitch for a non-existent single and Bilal at the striker's end refused. Aravind's throw although a little off-target was helped on to the stumps by some quick thinking on Vijay's part, catching Manzoor just short of the crease. Bilal had a couple of lucky reprieves, one when he survived a very confident leg-before appeal and the second one was a dropped catch at point by Amar, both off consecutive balls in Vijay's first over. He made it count and went on to score 54. Qaiser Khan did not last long and holed out to Rajesh who held on to the skier off Sundar on the long-off boundary. Shami and Bilal, the two veterans in HPCC line-up decided to take us on since Ghias wasn't available for this game. Shami decided to give our bowlers a charge and the balls started to disappear to the boundary. With the score reading 75/2, the ball was changed after 15 overs at HPCC's behest and that just seemed like what the doctor ordered. He was especially severe on Sundar whose fourth over went for 17 runs. They had garnered 54 runs in 7 overs. Manoj came back with vengeance and bowled Shami all ends up. Bilal's innings seemed to remind us of last year's loss since he played a hand even then. Akbar joined Bilal and they carried on without a spot of bother taking 1s and 2s and hitting the odd boundary or sixer. Aravind brought himself on and his 4th over fetched us 2 crucial wickets. Bilal was finally adjudged lbw in trying to pull and Ravi held on to a spectacular catch running backwards at cover. At 158/5, HPCC seemed to be crumbling under pressure. Charan was his usual self troubling the later order batters with his excellent bowling. Uchil split the webbing on his left hand while taking Mushtaq's catch off Charan at deep mid-wicket and ended up getting 5 stitches later in the day. Nutty substituted for him. HPCC's tail didn't wag too much and we bundled them out for 185. Among the last few wickets, Manoj's direct hit to run Fadi out and Charan's reflexes in holding on to a superb return catch to dismiss Ali stood out. Under these conditions, it was equivalent to scoring 215 on a sunny day. Our fielding was patchy at best with quite a few balls going through the fielders' legs.

We started the chase at 2:30pm. The rain intensified a bit, but neither team was in any mood to abandon the match. HPCC had showed us that there were plenty of 1s and 2s to be run and we followed their example. Ravi and Aravind seemed to be in good nick playing with utmost commonsense until Aravind attempted a pull off Fadi and was gobbled up gleefully by Ali at deepish square-leg. Sundar went with the aim to consolidate and supported Ravi beautifully. Of course, the Gundappa in him couldn't be curbed and he excelled with a couple of extravagant square-cuts. The ball wasn't going to the boundary on the off-side behind square and so there was plenty of running between wickets required. A lofted on-drive had timing written all over it and Sundar seemed to be cruising along. Bilal's nippy pace surprised him and he spooned a simple catch to Mushtaq at mid-wicket and we were 58/2 off 10 overs still very much on target. Ravi was eyeing the ball very well at the other end. Even on a damp outfield, one of Ravi's trademark cover drives made it all the way to the boundary. Shibu joined Ravi and they followed the same formula of rotating strike and looking for the odd bad ball without trying anything outlandish. 86 runs flowed off their willows in just 13 overs. HPCC was losing confidence with every over that went by and were running out of ideas. Shibu is a joy to watch when he is in full flow with his searing square-drives and silken flicks that pierce the gaps with utter disdain. Ravi fell for a superb 56 well caught by Akbar at long on. Vijay walked in with TCC needing 45 runs off 7.4 overs. The run-rate was around 6 an over. The pair ran a lot of 2s with Shibu clobbering anything that was either a long hop or too full in length. It seemed like they would take us home, but Vijay holed out to Akbar off Qaiser with the team needing 7 off 6 balls. Charan walked in with a totally determined look and clubbed 9 runs off 3 balls with a boundary included to finish off the match with 2 balls to spare. It seemed like poetic justice had been done given that Charan wrapped it all up. He had been on the losing side last year's playoff match against the same opponent with crucial catches being dropped. I would say full marks to the frontline batsmen for not having caved in during the chase.

MoM - Team TCC.