The day started with a threat of rain but the cricket Gods were in a merciful mood and filled the sky with sunlight instead of dark clouds as game time came near. Unfortunately, or fortunately for some, the conditions at Kimberley Avenue field were far from conducive for cricket hence the venue was changed to the field on Clinton Avenue. The captains decided to spin the toss as soon as the pitch was prepared to allow for full 30 overs to be played. Eagles won the toss and decided to take first strike. That decision did not dishearten the UBS skipper too much due to the fact that he would have elected to field anyway had he called on the right side of the coin.
Due to the fact that the cricket season is still in its early stages, both teams had decided to play several rookie players in order to get their feet wet (both figuratively and literally) in a SCTCA cricket match. The new players introduced themselves to everyone and finally the teams took to the field to kick start the match. Eagles began proceedings with Abhishek and Nimesh while UBS decided to counter with the pace and swing combination of Alay and Gokul. Alay started off well by troubling the Eagles’ openers and getting them to play and miss ample times. His efforts were rewarded when he opened his account by getting through Nimesh’s defenses. It was the ideal start for UBS and it only got better when Alay repeated the feat against Ali Imran. Gokul kept a tight line and length from the other end and offered nothing that the batsmen could score off. Eagles had sent Ali Raza to accompany Abhishek and they began the process of steadying the innings. Ali did not miss the rare opportunities to put the bad balls to the fence. Just when the partnership was looking ominous, Gokul delivered a peach to remove Abhishek and put UBS back on top. Shakeel Butt had the unfortunate task of facing Gokul when he is hot and hence quickly fell to another beauty without troubling the scorers much. Santosh decided to bring himself into the attack in order to change it up a bit and was duly rewarded with the wicket of Ali Raza aided by a quick handed Pragnesh. Mikey and Ankur now embarked on the journey to bring the batting side’s total to a respectable level. Amit continued the trend of tight UBS bowling while keeping the pace of the game moving. After a decent partnership Mikey fell to Nikhel trying to launch one but ended up skying one to Santosh at cover. The tail wagged a bit for Eagles and the total had reached a respectable 137 at the end of 30 overs.
UBS decided to open the proceedings with the reliable firm of Trivedi-Yadav as they have done several times in the past. The pair is not known for its exploits in the running department but somehow always manages to get the team off to a decent start. Well, this was not one of those times. Achal started well but failed to reach double figures when he lined a sharp catch to mid-on. The pitch had dried a smidge but the usual true bounce of the Clinton Ave pitch was nowhere to be found. Alay added to the list of victims of a low shooter and lost his stumps. Panic was now beginning to creep in the UBS camp. Eagles helped relieve some of the pressure on the batting side by delivering ample amounts of extras but a ton of runs still needed to be scored. Bhavyen held one end steady by blocking out all low shooters and putting the loose ones to fence. Santosh quickly summed up the situation and realized that sticking around to support Bhavyen was the ideal option to see the team through to victory. He tried his best to do so and hung around as the countdown to the winning runs had slowly begun. Bhavyen was steadily adding to his and the team’s runs tally when he saw another low shooter end the day for Santosh as well. Amar and Akash Padhiyar tried their best on a tricky wicket but this was not the day that suited their style of play and they quickly perished. The runs needed were quickly diminishing but so were the batsmen at the other end. Akash Joshi joined Bhavyen and knocked off the runs needed for victory without any further hiccups. Rain showers had arrived on the field and hence with about 7 overs to go and UBS only needing about 6 runs to win, both teams decided that UBS is the winner and headed off the ground to avoid unnecessary injuries.
After gorging on tasty biryani and raita, the skippers jointly decided that Bhavyen (46*) was the Man of the Match and everyone went on their merry way.
