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 :)
