Rotary Tournament - Match 1

With more than a month break the CSS team had a double-header (not the right usage) this weekend. CSS had to play back to back matches as it chose to do a selection for more youngsters to its team the week earlier. 

It was great to see a lot of new faces and the team at the ground on time, well just about ;) on a very cloudy morning. 

Mr. Captain was out on business travel so it was all to his best men to manage. For the records I was introduced to the organizers and the oponents as captain. 

The first match was against RSJ Consultants. The team selection was a bit of a problem with many folks coming for the first time and "what they could do" is known only to Veera and Arvind. We decided to give chance to 2 of them so Gunjan and Yuvraj did their debut for CSS both choses for their bowling. 

The final XI - Arvind, Gunjan, Kiran, Paul, Prabhu, Satish, Veera, Vicky, Vishnu, Vishy & Yuvraj.

Supported by - Seshan, JP, Ramesh, Shyam, Dinesh, Hari & "Long haired guy" sorry dont remember his name. If I have left anyone it is unintentional, never had so many names to this CSS cricket team :)

I lost the toss and RSJ chose to bat on a very wet situation. It was drizzling when we started to bowl. 

The team was very active on the field and restricted RSJ to 136 in 20 overs. Gunjan did a great debut with 3/19 and Arvind was great on the field saving a few boundaries and took 2 good catches. It was raining pretty much throughout he innings, and we had a 15 minute break in between when it was heavy.

When we started to bat it had stopped raining but the field and the mat was very very wet. My simple suggestion was to stay there and use the first 5-7 overs when the ball is hard and not soaked. Yes thats how it was when we bowled and that probably helped us in a way to keep the boundaries away from RSJ batters.

I had asked Kiran and Veera to open with me as 3 and Arvind at 4 and vishnu at 5. At this point I pretty much thought this would do. But what was instore was different. 

Veera came back in the first over. I stayed in for just a few balls, kiran followed soon. The bowling was decent and the field was packed with young guys which gave few options for us to score. We were just 40 after 10 overs and the first boundary came in the 10th over of an inner edge from Arvind. Who played a brilliant innings with absolutely no flaws. He was all alone and it was sad to see him fight alone with no partner staying with him. He made an excellent 60 with 2 amazing sixes. In all we had just 2 sixes and 2 fours till Prabhu walked in as number 9. 

CSS managed to get the score above 100 and lost the match. All we wanted was one batsman to stay with Arvind to make it but we lost the match in the first 10 overs. I should mention their bowling was spot on especially a small kid who bowled excellent legspin and controlled the innings in his 4 overs with 3 wickets. He was declared the man of the match.

Scores: 

RSJ - 137/9 in 20 Overs (Gunjan 3/19)

CSS - 105/9 in 20 Overs (Arvind 60, Prabhu 20)

It wasnt  great start after the break and for a day with 2 matches back to back. But helped to decide on the team for the second match as Prabhu and Gunjan were seen for the first time in action.