TCC braves heat, shade-less ground and swarming ants to convincingly handle CWCC

Staying true to our Desi heritage, TCC reached H. Boyd Lee Park 30 minutes late. Travelling a 100 miles is in fact a logistical nightmare when it involves 12 Desi guys (some wanted to travel in rickshaws to save gas, while others wanted to ride the bus etc etc). Luckily for us, the umpires had their own ideas and had not reached the ground, so we were still able to take our own sweet time and get ready.

CWCC won the toss and sent us in to bat. Ravi and Uchil started the proceedings for TCC. Uchil, unfortunately, was the first to go and was plumb LBW! The ball that got him by surprise was a beauty that was pitched ON the Off stump and cut sharply OUTWARD trapping him right in front of the 2nd or 3rd Off stump! Muki seemed to go in with one idea in mind – to give catching practice to the CWCC fielders. He hesitantly played his second delivery towards Mid Off, only to be dropped by the fielder. He would get yet another life at Point, a few balls later, but then decided to get on with it lest he face the wrath of the Skipper. With Ravi being his usual Mr. Dependable, they put on 50-odd runs for the partnership with his superior stroke-play until the earlier catch-practice finally paid off and CWCC held on to a skier from Muki. Arekar went in and provided further support. Ravi, seemingly distraught after Muki’s dismissal was unable to bear the thought of being there, and gave up an easy catch. Mr. Dependable #2 (Shibu) went in and played his usual classy strokes and sprayed the ball all over the field, which has become customary, until he was caught behind. Arekar was going along fine until he got tired and got his clock cleaned out by a ball that had him double minded. Skipper Rajesh went in with the idea of sending a message and immediately started off on very “conservative” play by launching two missiles over the Long On and Long Off area. After some time though, he figured that he wanted to test the batting prowess of our Newbies and decided to get himself Runout. The awesome direct-hit throw by Oni had a little bit to do with it too I think. Nataraj, up next, just wanted put emphasis on bowling this time around and was back in the seats after facing a couple of deliveries. Srinivas went in and decided that he was going to show off his Mad Skillz. We all knew he could bowl, but he put on a great batting show, at one point hitting 4 boundaries on 4 consecutive balls. Alas, the fifth attempt got him in trouble and he was back with his compadres after a blazing 34 off 18 balls (7 - 4s). Sundax went in and just when he seemed to be getting started, was caught by double-agent Chak. Anand decided that this time around, he’s not going to get out and put up an invaluable 21 n.o. by playing a very sensible knock to all fields along with support from Chalam.

TCC ended up with a respectable total of 210 for 9 in 35 Overs.

CWCC seemed to get a good start with Ali and Chak playing the TCC bowling attack pretty comfortably. Chak was the first to go when seemingly the “double-agent” comment got under his skin and he cross-batted one to “You’re in good hands with Allstate” Rajesh. Ali quickly followed suit and was caught by Uchil off Srini. Chetan, Hardhik and Raja offered some resistance, but seemed to fall every time they would try to get some runs. Raja, particularly, was left holding the short straw when he was runout due to great fielding by Sundar. The rest of the line up pretty much folded thanks to some real tight bowling by the TCC attack. Nataraj finished up with 3 scalps. Srini and Uchil accounted for 2 each, while Shibu and Arekar were under-rewarded for their hard work by capping a wicket each.

It was a great all round effort by team TCC, and everyone contributed in all segments of the match. An away win always makes the ride back much easier.

Let’s keep the winning momentum on our side.

GO TCC!!!

MoM – Srinivas for a quick 34 and 2 wickets