By Dipen Vyas WGCC was riding a 4 game winning streak as they traveled to the dreaded Lakhany ground to take on GGCC who handily beat WGCC in the season opener. Thoughts of payback for that loss, coupled with the high of 4 game win streak and possibility of clinching the playoff spot was enough to get everyone pumped for the game. On another hot day in the making, WGCC won the toss and elected to bat first. Dipen and Amar started
the proceedings and took their time to settle in as GGCC pacers
maintained tight line and length. Soon enough, both Amar and Dipen
started scoring comfortably and at 12 over break we were 60 odd for no
loss. Amar holed out on square leg soon after as he tried to smash the
spinner for a six for a well made 28 runs. Dipen got out soon after for
34 runs as he missed a ball on a tricky line that spun slightly which
was enough to hit the leg stump. Both openers got a good start but
neither of them were able to convert it into a bigger score and it will
come back to bite us. Dharma and Sagar carefully started building a
partnership but Dharma holed out on afull toss ball as he tried to clear
the midwicket area which was the longest part of the ground. Amit then
joined Sagar and got of to his trademark quick start (15 runs) but
succumbed to a slog towards midwicket. Parthav and Sagar built a
partnership but soon after Sagar got out for 23 runs trying to
accelerate at the end. Eventually, we were restricted to 162 in 35 overs
as other batsmen could not accelerate at the end either. The slow
middle overs plagued us again along with no batsmen able to convert
their start into a bigger score. All 6 top order bastmen got a start
with double digit scores but it would have helped if one of them had
stayed longer on the crease. Knowing our strength in bowling,
we knew that it wasnt going to be easy to chase down this score
especially in the hot weather that we had going. Amar and Prashant
started off for WGCC and kept it tight with Prashant striking twice
quickly. ON the other end, their opener Bapat was scoring quickly and
was hitting every bowler quite well, highlight being a smoking six over
the covers off of usually invincible pace of Arpit. I guess we can say
that it was his day. Prady was able to nab Hari and G Shetty but the
scoring pace of Bapat made it difficult for WGCC to put pressur eon
other bastmen as they stayed put on the other end. With 20 odd needed
and 5-6 wickets in hand and 7-8 pvers to go, it looked like GGCC will
cruise to victory here but couple of quick wickets from Sagar and Arpit
along with Bapat getting lbw in Amar's bowling for a really good knock
of 97 runs made things tricky for them. Our bowlers bowled really well
in the death and we pulled it back to 2 runs needed in last over with 2
wickets in hand. Knowing that we needed to claim those wickets to win
the match, Prashant started the over with a dot ball but the second ball
stayed low and skid through the pitch and from under Dipen's gloves
that awarded them 2 bye runs and we lost the game by 2 wickets. It
was a hard fought game but we lost to a one man show put up by Bapat
(97 runs) as their second highest score came through extras (17 runs).
This is the point I was making about one batsmen converting a good start
into a long innings. We made it extremely difficult for them at the end
and we should be proud of how we never gave up the hope of winning
until the end. GO WGCC. #playtowin |
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