Hawkes players were in the right mood to give the best against our opponents – HitNRun. Hawkes and HitNRun have a bit of history between them; with the last match between the two teams going down to the wire; Hawkes prevailed in that game with Pranai hitting a boundary off the penultimate ball of the innings.
This was a must-win game for Hawkes to keep us in the hunt for the Platinum/Gold round, after the crushing loss against Rangers.
HitNRun innings:
Hawkes started out with Chai and Sreenath bowling very well in tandem. Score was 8 for no loss at the end of 4 overs. Pranai and PJ then took over and bowled a testing spell for the HitNRun batsman. Pranai was excellent with his line-length and variations. PJ was a revelation as he bowled pretty well and got the first wicket for Hawkes with a sharp catch from Chai at Point. Pranai got the second breakthrough with a good catch from Sankar in the covers region. Sankar was introduced in the 9th over and he had an immediate impact with Pawan holing out to Purab at deep point. At the end of 10 overs, HitNRun was at a precarious 27 runs for 3 wickets.
The 11th and 12th over from PJ and Sankar passed with no big shots from the HitNRun batsman; as two of their batters, Jayanth and Karthik were consolidating. The 13th over released the pressure for the opponent batsmen as Chai gave away 7 runs in the over including 3 wides. The dangerous partnership was broken in the 15th over with a stumping off a beautiful leg-cutter from Pranai. Wickets were falling continuously for the opponent; but we kept giving freebies with mis-fieldings and dropped catches.
Overall, HitNRun finished at 73 runs for 7 wickets in the allotted 20 overs. Hawkes gave away 46 runs in the last 10 overs, with atleast 10 extra runs due to mis-fieldings and dropped catches.
Hawkes innings:
Hawkes opened with PJ and Kartik but the start was not that good. Kartik gave a return catch to the last ball of the first over to a full-toss. Yours truly did not do too well at the 1-down position and was run-out going for a non-existent 2nd run. PJ batted nicely, but he too got out by the 5th over to a smart catch in the covers. Hawkes was 16 runs for 3 wickets at the end of 5 overs. There was a period of consolidation after that by Sreenath and Pranai. Hawkes ended the first 10 overs at an identical 27 runs for 3 wickets.
Sreenath and Pranai batted beautifully to get Hawkes to a position of strength. The partnership was broken by a controversial catch at covers with the whole Hawkes team deeming that the ball had bounced before the fielder took the catch. Anil, Amar and Chai did their bit in getting Hawkes near the winning total. Sreenath was playing a lone hand at the other end with a hit to the straight boundary. With the loss of Sreenath’s wicket and Hawkes needing 15 runs off 2 overs, it was left to the trio of Sankar, Venky and Purab to take Hawkes over the finishing line. 6 runs came off the penultimate over. In the last over, Hawkes needed 9 runs to win.
Last Over:
1st Ball - Sankar took a double; 7 more to go
2nd Ball - Sankar took a double; ; 5 more to go.
3rd Ball - Sankar hit a catchable shot to long-on; catch was dropped and 2 more runs added; 3 more to go.
4th Ball - 2 runs, No-ball + Single; 1 more to go.
4th Ball (Legal) - Venki tapped it to covers and ran a single.
Sankar did the great job of finishing the game with some lusty hits to the long-off and long-on fielders. Two dropped catches on two balls (one each in the penultimate over and the last over ) cost HitNRun 4 runs with some excellent running from Venki.
MAN OF THE MATCH: Sreenath for his 19 (38) and 1 wicket and of course the dropped catch :)
Very good write up Sarba! It was a nail biting game since we played Spartance :) Great work from each and everyone... sure we had our ups and down but at the end we managed to come thru as a team.
ReplyDeleteSarba - nice work dude. total recap of the match on the page. will make you official write-up guy for the hawkes team :)
ReplyDeleteIf we play as a team we can beat anybody. I am working on my catching. will try to change the technique the way i am going for the catches. As you said, piyush J was extremely good. He did not let anybody down. we should make use of his bowling more frequently. all the best for the next match
Excellent writeup Sarba!! Re-lived the moments through your writeup.Well I still thot we might end up short in the last over but our team has now learn't to pull off win from tight situations, which is gr8 thing as we have been on the other side of the fence too many times before :).
ReplyDeleteNice and wonderful article Sarba, Yes it was a very tense game as b4 when we played then in Pre quarter final for FO2009 Gold Cup. We had them under the mat almost all of the 1st innings, if we would not have missed filedings and catches, u would have been in gr8 position at the 1st half.......
ReplyDeleteGood show by all the players and 2 or 3 come top in every match....
This time it was Sreenath(allround performance) and Sankar(hold his nerve till the end)......
Positive things to take forward for the team -- Very good bowling shown by PJ, As always Venki's running b/w the wickets, Senior players joining the party(this time it was Sreenath)....
Negative factors to improve -- In the fielding and catching departments.....
Highlights of the Game:
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1. Shot of the Week: Sreenath lofting Off spiner over the log on for four.
2. Ball of the Week: Leg cutter from pranai to brake the partnership b/w Karthi/Jeyanth.
3. Catch of the Week: Wonderful catch by Kartik to dismiss Jeyanth. Purab's catch is equally good.
4. Dismissal of the Week: Sarba's quick work behind the stumps to dismiss Kartik.
Finally Players of the Week: Sreenath & Sankar....
My request to sankar( man you r good with the ball last match and good with the bat this match, Give some room for others to catch u in the race......)
Very well written Sarba. Lovely recap. I was just telling the boys yesterday that it was my first win with Hawkes. Hopefully many more to come...!!
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the nice write up.
@ Pranai: heeding to ur request, I am unavailable for this weekend's game...;-).
@ Sankar: I Was just kidding on that. We never want our inform players to miss any match. Anyway, this might be a chance to other players to catch u...
ReplyDelete