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.
2 comments:
two winners cup and one runners up throphy in the last three tournaments is no mean achievment team.......cheers :)
It certainly is good work. Beyond Boundaries would be a good one to have on our shelves :)
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