NA NA NA NA NA NA…Getting Viggy with it……NA NA NA NA NA

And out of nowhere Mozaam swung far too early. Viggy bowled an extra slow one and the stumps went tumbling. As is so often the case the man up the other end is dismissed so soon afterwards. This time it was the very next ball as Absar laid into a short ball from Kiran smacking it straight into the hands of Murali at point. The middle order which had been given such an outstanding foundation to work from decided that 350 was their target and swung the bat accordingly. Acceleration did take place with the scoring but it certainly was not the blowout Cleveland 1 feared. Zubair made 21 but no other batsman made double figures as both Zubair and Srini were dismissed off Gautam's slower delivery in the end the score was 5/198 off 35 overs. Mozaam was brilliant for 78 and was matched by Absar who scored 67 in wonderful displays of batting for their side. For Cleveland 1 Gautam had the impressive figures of 7-1-28-3 and it is worth mentioning the only wicket not mentioned above was off Gautam's bowling when Ani took a brilliant diving catch to dismiss Shariq. As fine a catch as we have seen this season. Kiran's 5-0-20-1 was also good considering how many of his overs were late in the game. Whilst the score made by Shihab was not meager it would be remiss of me not to mention that despite some of the stick dished out to the Cleveland bowlers only seven wides were bowled (A stat greatly appreciated by stand in keeper Michael). Our line was not that bad, just some very good batting. Also three of the five wickets to fall were off slower deliveries.

In reply Gautam ventured out into the middle as usual, never far away is the SMOKING GUN as he goes out to umpire…but for this game a change of plan as the SMOKING GUN had the pads on, opening with Gautam and the partnership worked. Gautam who was overdue for a big innings ravaged the attack from the start. Up the other end the SMOKING GUN was firing away with quick singles, hustling Gautam to the strikers end. The score buzzed past 50 in the eighth over and it was soon after that the SMOKING GUN misfired and shot it back into Shariq's hands, caught and bowled. Whether it the good ball that got him, or poor judgment of the delivery due to fatigue was discussed before we realized that the SMOKING GUN was suffering nicotine withdrawals in the middle an in true style like Rajan Gautam…devoured the stamina sticks upon dismissal. Will he ever quit? Who knows Ani says it's the easiest thing to do…he has done it many times!!!! With such a great start Gautam consolidated somewhat with Vignesh up the other end providing good running between wickets as the score was cruising towards the target. Unfortunately for Gautam who was on track to crack three figures he was dismissed for 79. An unfortunate dismissal but it rounded off a magnificent all around performance by the captain who stood up in the wake of the debacle the previous week. Ani strode in and wanted to stride back as soon as possible with victory by bludgeoning the attack. He did that for 22 runs before being unfortunately run out that bought Sunny in who gave no respite and the competitive target of 198 was taken care of with seven wickets in hand and 45 legal balls to spare. Viggy (who batted most sensibly) not out 30 - Sunny not tout 14. None of the Shihab figures were pretty with the bowling, they all copped stick the man of the match was easily Gautam for his already mentioned display. It was an important win for Cleveland 1 and helped exorcise some of the demons from the previous week. Clearly the batting was superb on this day, the fielding and bowling were not at a great standard but they did improve. As despondent as we were at times we never gave up hope and we redeemed ourselves. Both Murali and Ani who put down catches they would normally take early in the game both took two excellent catches to remove batsmen and the momentum from that flowed onto the rest of the team. This may well be the turning point we needed to accelerate towards playoff glory.