11th Feb 2012 - Mayajaal

Decided to carry my camera kit along for this match, probably for the first time. The reason being, Mayajaal attracts a lot of birds and macro subjects due to its vast open field and greenery.

Clicked a few of the cricket action too. Here are some of them.

Bowling Karthee (left), Vikram (center), Vignesh (right)





Stance - Naveen (left), Satish (Right)


Veera - Snatching a quick one.




Sudhakar in action - Bowling




Arvind (left) and Sudhakar (Right)





Left- Arvind - Half pull down the leg side. Right - First ball Vicky faced .. wild swing.



Left - Cautious Defense .. he tried :); Right - Prem - He tried his best, for ball to meet the bat.



Satish - The pic looks like he is late .. but he did connect :)



The entertainer - Amjikarai Axlrose :)

Veera's last match for CSS Corp.

Veeraswami Balasubramanian, made a decision to stick on to what he was passionate and enjoyed doing for the best of the last 4 years and more and to leave CSS Corp early this month.

From Corporate cricket stand point it was good to see him leave when the team was back with full strength be it in numbers and also performance. All the very best Veera, you will be missed on the ground for your "Vengala Kural" screaming and cheering and of-course for keeping wickets.

The CSS Corp Cricket Team










Warming up prior to the match












Veera going for the toss

Sree Cricket Academy Tournament - Match 2

Match - CSS v RTG
Venue - English Electricals Cricket Ground, Pallavaram Chennai
Date - 8th Nov 2009
Result - RTG Won

Sree Cricket Academy Tournament 2008 - Match 1

Match - CSS v CTS 

Venue - English Electricals Cricket Ground, Pallavaram Chennai

Date - 1st Nov 2009

After a gap of almost a month with no matches as the weather played spoil sport, we had a match.

It was CSS's first match in this ground,  first match of a new tournament 

(First time organisers) on a very wet Saturday morning on the first day of November 08, first time for Sameer (new entrant into this team) to watch local cricket in Chennai . Well, with all these firsts we also had 2 of our great contributors of CSS Cricket team, Vicky and Karthik, playing their last match for CSS as they had decided to move to greener pastures in their life.

CSS team was very eager to play a match after a month long break. Things started

 a little sluggishly in the morning as the ground was wet with overnight due.

The toss was a little crucial with the ground being big and wet. CSS lost the toss but CTS decided to field first. I guess the thought was to contain CSS and use the heavy wet outfield. 

The Final XI - Arvind, Kiran, Karthik, Prabhu, Satish G, Satish M, Veera, Vicky, Vishnu, Vishy & Yuvraj

Supported by - Dinesh, Naveen, Seshan, Sameer, Balaji.

Vicky playing his last match was very keen to open, I was too ;), but decided to let him play with Kiran. It was slow rate of scoring with the heavy wet outfield and the running between was limited a max of 1 run per hit. The ball was changed around the 6th over and it helped to improve the scoring rate. 

Vicky specifically started to play his game with regular hits to fence. He got out trying to hit one out of the park around the 12th over. This brought in the second playing who wa

s playing his last match. "Mr. Best-Batsman-Slash-has-ever-produced" joined Kiran. Kiran who was playing second fiddle until Vicky was at the center started to open up he completed a well made 58. Karthik on the other hand made some quick runs and made the ball change again with just 3 overs to go. This was again useful for him to complete his 50.  Arvind and I wa

ited with both padded up till the end, our wait is not extended by at least another week.

CSS scored 171/1 in 19 overs, yes CTS could only bowl 19 overs in their stipulated time. 

With a good score on board CSS had just one thing to do, do nothing silly on the field and thats all I said in the huddle. Use your head in the field as this is a big ground.

I started the bowling and it was one of the rustiest overs I had bowled with 2 wides. Yuvraj shared the new ball with me. I guess the new ball excited him and he was bowling real fast to the surprise of Kiran who was keeping wickets.

CTS kept loosing wickets at regular intervals and CSS was very relaxed on the field. Vishnu and Prabhu bowled brilliantly in the middle. Vicky bowled a couple of overs in his last match and managed to take the middle stump out once again. This is something he has done a few times in the slog overs for CSS in T20 matches. Satish M, playing his first game a fter a long time bowled well too.  The best thing that happened in his first over was vicky chasing the ball thrice from square-leg to deep midwicket

. I

t was a rare sight of panther doing the run :)

Few positives on the field - 

- Veera seem a lot swifter on the field guess the workouts are helping

- Run out by Vishy at covers

- Kiran is  back to scoring runs and keeping wickets

- Yuvraj was noticeably quick today

- Balaji seem to shedding some weight (off field)

Final Scores

CSS - 171/1 in 19 overs

Vikram - 30 Out bowled

Kiran - 58 not out

Karthik - 54 not out

CTS - 93 for 9 in 19 overs

Vishy - 12/1 in 4 overs (Again most economical........hehe....)

Yuvraj - 18/1 in 2 overs

Prabhu - 16/2 in 4 overs

Vishnu - 22/2 in 4 overs  

Vikram - 10/2 in 3 overs

Satish M - 9/1 in 2 overs

Kiran was declared the Man of the Match  !!

Congratulations Kiran !!! 

Congratulations CSS !!! 

Beyond Boundaries - Match 2

CSS Vs Verizon = CSS lost

Complete Scorecard

http://www.cricketmaidan.com/ScoreCard.aspx?InningsId=3164

Beyond Boundaries - Match 1

CSS Vs ABN AMRO - CSS Won


Complete Scorecard

http://www.cricketmaidan.com/ScoreCard.aspx?InningsId=3134

Rotary Tournament - Match 4 (Finals)

Cybernet SlashSupport Vs RSJ Consultants

It was a great saturday morning with bright sun light and strong breeze. The finals was a 9 o' clock start and helped the teams to be there earlier. CSS Team reached the ground almost together by around 8.15am which is really nice to see. With teams played already against each other in one of the round matches and familiar with the players, both looking forward for this match. With RSJ coming to the finals with all wins and CSS only loosing to RSJ in the round matches a great match was expected.

I had to wait till the last minute to confirm Shiva's availability. Very unfortunate that he had to miss the match.

The match was officiated by Ms. Sumathy the first woman international umpire.

The Final XI: Arvind, Gunjan, Karthik, Kiran, Prabhu, Ramesh (wk), Satish, Veera, Vishnu, Vicky, Vishy

Supported by: Seshan, Naveen, Hari, Dinesh, Satish, Balaji & Yuvraj.

CSS won the toss and put RSJ to bat. There were a few in the CSS camp who had a difference to this decision of mine, as RSJ had a couple of good bowlers in them. With 5 all-rounders and 3 specialist batsmen you would do this.

CSS were much better on the field with except for a few extra runs due to slow fielding and one drop catch by Karthik. But that did not stop vishnu from taking a hat-trick and vikram taking another 3 wicket haul. Overall the bowling was good. As a matter of fact post match CSS team was praised by Ms. Smathy and I quote "CSS captain's bowling was very well disciplined and the entire team rallied along with it". :)))

CSS restricted RSJ to 131 all out with more than an over to spare. I think this is the first time CSS has done this in 20-20 tournaments.

Bowling figures

Vishy - 4-0-18-0
Gunjan - 2-0-18-0
Vikram - 3-0-17-3
Prabhu - 4-0-27-1
Vishnu - 3.5-0-33-3
Satish - 2-0-13-1

With almost the same target that we had in the round matches to score I asked Kiran and Vikram to open the innings. Kiran just lasted for 3 balls, his poor run continues. Vikram did a sehwag this time with a couple of edges to the fence but got out for 10. Arvind also perished for just 5. I was there for a while but couldnt score much. Then came vishnu. It was his day, probably one of the best innings i have seen him play. He was at ease and hitting the ball over the fence pretty regularly. While this was happening he was loosing partners at the other end regularly.

With 10 runs to score of the last over and with the last batsman in with Vishnu, I seriously thought we had the match. But then satish did his usual flick of moving way outside the off stump to lodge the ball over fine leg. While this has helped satish in the past it didnt this time. He slipped and vishnu in all his hurry to take the strike did not see satish on the ground sitting flat.

CSS lost the match by 8 runs.

Batting Scores
Vikram - 10(8); Kiran - 0(3); Karthik 12(12); Arvind 5(13); Vishy - 8 (16); Prabhu - 12(13); Vishnu - 52(32); Ramesh - 3(6); Gunjan - 9(7); Veera - 0(2); Satish - 2(4)

In all it was a great final. CSS had the match throughout but didnt at the end.

Congratulations RSJ !!

Hardluck CSS you were good, but at the end of the day a few mistakes on the field with some extra runs and poor running between the wickets cost the match.

Vishnu with 3 wickets and 52 was unanimously declared the Man of the Match.

The prize distribution took place at Alumni Club and the following awards were given

Rotary Tournament 2008
Winners - RSJ Consultants
Runners - Cybernet SlashSupport

Man of the Series - Vikramkumar Palanisamy (CSS)
Man of the final - Vishnuvardhan (CSS)

Overall CSS had a good tournament. With 4 matches they had 3 Man of the matches and 1 Man of the series. Just that they didnt have lady luck along to include the winners trophy to this list!!

Paper cuttting for this match as it appeared on Deccan Chronicle dated 21st Sep 2008 Page 55.