The Everest has been conquered on 19th June 2005, however, this time it was done without the aid of the Sherpas. The expedition was completed by 12 individuals whose hearts were as big as the mighty Sherpas. This "Dirty Dozen" is none other the Cleveland 2 team that went to Columbus with one thought in their heads, Payback. As most subscribers know, the Everest Cricket Club has been a nemesis for the Cleveland 2 team in the Midwest Cricket Tournament for the past couple of years. Even with commendable performances, C2 have fallen short of the achieving the summit. This weekend however, the Gods went crazy and bestowed their blessings on us for a welcome change.

The team unlike expected did not show any sign of fatigue from the previous day's game. This was a great sign of things to come. The mood in the base camp was jovial as always with friendly banter until game time. By game time, our Captain Marvel (Lokesh) stepped in for the toss. Unfortunately, the toss was lost but the result was desirable. We were forced to field. What we knew and ECC found out was that the C2 exuberant bowling lineup was more than a match for the fancy batting lineup of the ECC. Today, Everest would be conquered and there was no two ways about it.

Kuljit started the onslaught with the 6 magical deliveries, in which the batsmen managed to squeeze just a run or so. Then, the spotlight drifted to "Wonder-Boy" Sundeep, who would leave the ECC batsmen standing agape for the rest of the day. With his first ball of the day Sunny was spot on finding the edge of the most feared ECC batsman in Lawrence. Nikunj started to make an entry in his black book after the catch. ECC had been rudely woken on this beautiful Sunday morning by the news that read "Cleveland was in town". Kuljit was not just going to stand and watch; instead he joined the party in style to put his imprint on the other opener Guru's stumps. Before ECC could realize what was going on, they were two down.

This brought Prashanth and Omar at the crease to face the firing squad. The only thing that was missing in the batsmen's attire were the dancing shoes, yet the C2 bowlers made them dance around the crease without a clue of where the next ball would land. After a couple of half chances, Kuljit decided to put an end to the salsa and uprooted Omar's stumps. Wonder boy, who has so far been really unlucky in the tournament as far as wickets go, had the perfect planetary alignment at this time. After beating Prashanth a trillion times, Sunny finally got Prashanth to loft a ball to mid-off to the safe hands to Sameer. The next pair of batsmen were Jim and the captain Suresh who had a fifty against C2 same time last year. Watch out Suresh, Sunny is on the prowl. Without much adieu, Suresh followed Prashanth in similar fashion. Drinks were on and the ECC score was a dismal 29 for 5 after 12 overs. After the pace man attack, Lokesh, Hiren and Sameer joined in on the festivities. Jim and Rahul Ponappa, put on a gutsy partnership trying to mend the damage inflicted on them, but not for long. With his first ball, Hiren bowled Jim around his legs while the rest of the players just watched in awe. Sameer was right on target mixing his bouncers, with his quicker ones, keeping the bats at bay. Lokesh added one more jewel to his ever expanding armor, bouncers. The three bowlers were a sight to watch. After Sameer plugged Fahad LBW, Hiren did not waste any more time cleaning up the tail. He bowled Shivkumar and followed the next ball with an astounding caught and bowled to send Vineet Arya walk back with the bubbling duck of the Australian broadcasters on his side. Sameer would later clean up Sundar for his second wicket of the day. The bowlers had put a dagger right into the heart of the opponent with surgical precision and it was up to the batsmen to complete the task.

The ever dependable Nikhil and new comer Azhar stepped out to challenge the ECC bowlers and boy they did. The first 8 overs were seen off by the openers with utmost confidence. The game plan was simple not to lose early wickets to follow the ECC example. Lawrence and Rahul the opening bowlers deserve much credit for their brilliant bowling performance. The openers really frustrated the bowling attack of ECC by not committing to any stroke that remotely had a risk associated. Lawrence was first to get the break through by finding a very faint edge of Azhar to the keeper. This brought on the star of Saturday's game Nikunj to the crease. However, sadly for Nikunj, he was trapped plumb in front by the first ball bowled by Fahad. Shiva, a.k.a. Master Blaster of C2, joined Nikhil and started to push the score past drinks. The ghosts of the past seemed to show its ugly face right around this time. Nikhil, who was looking great, mistimed a shot to mid wicket for a well deserved 24 and the brakes appeared to be coming on. This brought Sai onto the crease to join Shiva determined to take the fight to the ECC camp. With Shiva playing a very circumspect innings on one end, Sai started to open up with a huge six off Fahad. However, after a couple of overs, Sai threw his wicket away with a whimsical mis-hit to leg gully chasing a wide ball. Shiva quickly followed falling to a pretty ordinary delivery of Suresh. With just 37 runs required C2 was starting to chalk a familiar debacle. However, Sameer, the man with a plan, had different ideas. He carved out a scintillating innings of 24*, with a couple of magnificent hits over long off and midwicket to take C2 home. Although he lost Kuljit and Hiren on the other side in quick succession, he simply put the team on his back to carry C2 home.

Today was a momentous day for C2 for it had to conquer Everest and they did it in style. Wonder boy Sundeep was named "Man of the Match" for his excellent performance with the ball.
The batting mishaps may be taken as a blessing in disguise, for this performance does not allow an air of complacency to set in. With hopes of completing a historic journey, C2 walked past the Everest setting its eyes on bigger targets.