The
much awaited & anticipated game was on Saturday 16th July.
Both the teams were undefeated in their group. It was cloudy
and overcast. Cleveland 2 team members were extremely professional
to be on time for the game. The 12th man of Cleveland 2 was
at the ground even before any member from CCC arrived!!!!!
Lokesh won the toss & elected to bat first. The game started
almost an hour late. The freshly laid bowling run up was new
for both the teams. Rajan & Sai opened the innings in the
absence of our dashing Nikhil 'Kargil'. Good swing bowling &
the cloudy overcast conditions made batting extremely difficult.
In no time, Rajan & Sai were back in the pavilion. Shiva
-one of the consistent bat this season entered the scene alongside
Nikunj-one of the most stylish batsmen in the team. However,
Nikunj was clean bowled by a good Yorker from Sekhar. Cleveland
2 was in trouble with 3 gone for only 16 on the board. Lokesh
& Shiva tried to stabilize the innings with some sensible
batting, quick running between the wickets to take the score
to 48. When things seem to be stable, a late in-swinger from
Vineel clean bowled Lokesh. Wickets kept falling at one end
& at the other end the man in form, Shiva, kept his cool
& was ticking the score card with singles & doubles
which was unlike his 'Demolition style'. Sameer & Hiren
were out soon. The CCC captain-brought himself on to bowl &
was rewarded with the priced wicket of shiva who gave a straight
forward catch to the bowler. It was looking like the team would
get out for a very low score but then the 'never say die' attitude
of Cleveland 2 members ensured that we reached a reasonable
fighting score. In comes Sher-E-Punjab Kuljit who played some
good strokes but was out playing-on to a ball heading down the
leg. Sundeep & Sudeep hit some great shots and kept the
fielders on their toes. All of a sudden, there was commotion
in CCC team; lot of misfiled, dropped catches ensured that Cleveland
2 reach 139/10. The partnership of Romy & Sudeep contributed
almost 20 crucial runs for the last wicket. Sudeep was run out
off the last ball of the innings.
'Well, 139/10 is too easy to score we will win this game'-this
was the 'aura' of CCC, but they didn't realize that this same
Cleveland 2 team last year scored 119 & defended it against
one of the playoff teams- COBCA who were all out for 77 runs.
The determined Cleveland 2 team started off with Sundeep
bowling the first over in which Ravindran found the fence
couple of times. Sher-E -Punjab Kuljit demonstrated great
accurate swing bowling. With a low target to defend, Lokesh
brought in our Hyderabad express, Sameer, in the third over.
He was rewarded immediately with the wicket of Ravindran,
who tried to play his favorite shot over extra covers to an
out-swinger from sameer which took the edge & blasted
off towards gully were Sai took a brilliant catch. One wicket
down at the third over. Great pace & swing bowling from
Sameer & Kuljit kept the CCC batsmen thinking. CCC batsmen
were tentative in their stroke play. Lokesh & Hiren were
brought in for the bowling change. CCC batsmen scored some
quick runs off few bad balls. At drinks CCC were 53/1 in 12
overs. The clouds were moving in & it started to rain
heavily. Both the teams waited for almost one hour before
deciding to split the points.
The much awaited game ended in a tame draw. At that point
of time, CCC might have thought that they would win the game,
but they didn't realize that they still had to score almost
85 runs at adverse weather & against good bowling attack.
Couple of quick wickets would have seen CCC struggling to
find the low target & the replay of the COBCA game result
last year. Even now I still wonder 'which team' was saved
by rain god !!!!!!!! No matter what the result would have
been, it would have been nice if the game was finished.
As usual, CCC is a pleasure to play against. They were very
professional on & off the field. Cleveland 2 will look
forward to playing them in the future.
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