Quite contrary to the previous weekend, this day presented ample sunshine and a dried out pitch that had the promise of decent bounce. The quarter finals of the Surinder Plaha Tournament had pinned Brass Cricket Club against UBS with a place in the Semi Finals up for grabs. West Haven Cricket Club as a result of a bye was awaiting the winner of the match. That aspect just adds fuel to an already roaring fire.
The toss was spun and won by UBS who promptly decided to take first strike on a decent looking pitch. Being that the game was being played on a Saturday, the reliable firm of Trivedi-Yadav LLC, was off and the opportunity to open the innings was presented to Atif Zafar and Bhavyen. Brass began with the swing of Imran Rana and the pace of Tahir. The openers started by playing off the initial few overs but quickly got into their stride by stroking a few to the fence. The thick grass did prevent a few shots from reaching the boundary but that did not discourage the openers’ scoring rate. The introduction of spin brought rewards for Brass as Atif fell trying to hoick one over midwicket. A break for water was quickly taken at the fall of the wicket and more tragedy was to follow on the flip side. Nasir produced a ripper of a delivery to peg Bhavyen’s off stump back. The openers were now back in the shed on consecutive deliveries and Brass felt they can tighten the screws and slow the scoring rate down. Achal and Santosh now got together and decided to steady UBS’ innings while keeping the scorecard ticking. They put a decent partnership together before Santosh lost his wicket. Virender, Nikhel Thapar and Shashi stuck around with Achal (46*) to put together useful partnerships and push the team’s score to a respectable 156 at the end of 30 overs. The thick outfield conditions coupled with a tough UBS bowling attack was sure to make the total even stiffer that it already was.
Brass began their innings with Tahir and Shajaib who had given UBS nightmares during the T20 game 6 months ago while successfully chasing a mammoth score of 240. But the UBS bowlers were determined to prevent history from repeating itself. The first and perhaps the most dangerous element of Brass’ batting was dismissed immediately when Gokul outfoxed Tahir with a slower one and forced him into popping a simple catch to cover. UBS were utterly delighted at seeing Tahir’s bat heading back to the pavilion without troubling the scorers. What was to follow only solidified UBS’ hold on the game. New comer Virender was given the opportunity to roll his arm over and he produced two consecutive pacy toe crushers to disturb the furniture of the next two batsmen. Noticing that a hattrick was on the cards, skipper decided to crowd the new batsman with an umbrella field consisting of a silly point, shot leg, 5 slips, leg slip and the sledger-in-chief (Amit) living up to his reputation at short cover. The pressure on the batsman was higher than chemicals in a spray can but somehow he was able to survive the hattrick delivery. Shajaib was steady at one end but wickets kept tumbling at the other. The other big wicket that UBS was after was that of Brass’ skipper Imran Rana’s. He comes with the reputation of changing a game on its head with his lusty hitting capabilities. Santosh decided to take up the challenge and decided to bring himself into the attack and bowl his leggies. Since the whole league knows that Imran is a beast on anything on his legs, the legside field was packed tighter than sardines in a can. Well, true to form, Santosh bowled one of his leg spinners and Imran swung it to deep midwicket. The ball went higher than a kite towards deep midwicket but Nikhel Thapar took up the challenge and camped under the ball. Even with the bright sun in his eyes, Nikhel judged the catch to perfection and took it without any hiccups. With Imran gone, UBS knew that the game was firmly in their hands but the remaining wickets had to be taken to finalize the result. With the asking rate climbing, Brass’ batsmen decided to free their arms connected with a few lusty blows over the fence. The equation came down to 22 runs in one over and Santosh decided to put his faith in Virender. Virender began with a couple of extras but wrapped up the win with an economical over.
The food after the game was extra delicious and disappeared quicker than your wallet in a dark alley. After careful discussions and considerations, Achal was awarded the man of the match trophy followed by a speech and a photo session.
