Agility Panthers managed to be on the field on Friday for an early start, however the umpires were not :) . The match however started at 6:15 am with a nice breeze and all the team members in good happy mood.
We who won the toss, decided to bowl first considering the fact that the team we were playing were known for good batting. The innings started in the most amazing way with their opener going after the very first ball bowled by Anees, however considering we have been playing cricket for a long time a relatively simple catch dropped on the first ball gave the indication to the other team how high our fielding standards were.
First over cost us around 14 runs or so and Amad was given the second over and bowled with a lot of determination to have the opener out who he had dropped on the first ball, bowled an excellent first over, however the openers intentions were very clear from the word go and our catching kept getting worse and worse. We managed to drop 5 catches which was not acceptable and at the end made the difference.
Overall, we managed to keep the scoring under control considering the start they were off to, they managed to score 198 runs in 20 overs, which I feel was 30 runs over what they should have. As the saying goes “Catches win matches”….
We came into bat with different opening pair, Nisar and Adnan started cautiously and never really got us off to a start we wanted. Nisar got out playing the usual aerial shot and unfortunately added to the rest. Ahmed was sent 1 down to go after the bowling and my word he did really made us proud with some excellent hitting. Due to a poor batting start that we got, I had decided to come in myself when the second wicket fell but didn’t bother the scorers much and got out cheap. However, I felt that I was still batting since I had to run for Ahmed till pretty much the end of the innings. Sameer Bhai played very well and ran extremely well with me, we managed to convert singles to doubles and tried our best but unfortunately nothing seemed enough. At the end we lost by 18 runs and we faced a very disappointing result.
As a captain I feel it is important to highlight a few things that our team has to improve on, no one like loosing but we need to give it our best shot.
Fielding - Continuously lets us down ground fielding seems like we are jogging after the ball, we keep pointing to each other and the ball wins. Fielding is simple but needs an active mind and concentration that’s it. All we have to do make sure the ball lands in our hands and our body is behind it so in case we have holes our body blocks it.
Catching – All of us need a catching session before the match, we don’t need to do any batting or bowling sessions but just fielding/catching sessions. We practice and we get better that’s the key.
Running – That’s the most simplest thing ever to do, come on guys we have been doing this ever since we were 2 or something. I hate to take names but there is one player I want to take this seriously – Ahmed I don’t know mate if you still m$%#$%@# or what but unless you are seriously injured don’t expect anyone to run for you. And if you are batting don’t ask the other batsman not to make you run cause a cricket game cannot only be won off boundaries but running makes a lot of difference so you need to work on it while batting and fielding.
Batting – A good start matters the most and whoever plays at the top needs to play with responsibility. Its much easier scoring runs off a new ball and we need to start doing that but that doesn’t mean we don’t play sensibly. Yes, we do need to take calculated risks, but if one has worked in the over use your batting skills to score singles, doubles or hit a boundary. Batting at the top needs improvement
Bowling – I feel we can bowl well if supported with good fielding however, I feel we do experiment a lot in what sort of deliveries we should bowl. One important thing to remember when playing on cement pitches is that we don’t aim to bowl a batsman out but we should aim to bowl within line and make the batsman take risks. We cannot simply just sit back giving away almost 200 runs and leave it to the batsmen we need to work on our bowling to stop teams from scoring at this rate.
I must share this with you, GCC’s captain came up to me this Friday and he said this to me.
“Waqar you have an excellent batting and bowling side, and you guys can beat any team that play in Kuwait. With that you are one of the worst fielding side and that is the only factor that stops you guys. I want to take your team for regular fielding practice.”
Can you imagine such words from another team? So guys, we know we can play cricket come on its in our blood lets just back each other up and improve on things highlighted and I am sure we will do well. I hope we give it our best shot this Friday where the venue changes and there are going to be new things tried in the match so be ready :)
We who won the toss, decided to bowl first considering the fact that the team we were playing were known for good batting. The innings started in the most amazing way with their opener going after the very first ball bowled by Anees, however considering we have been playing cricket for a long time a relatively simple catch dropped on the first ball gave the indication to the other team how high our fielding standards were.
First over cost us around 14 runs or so and Amad was given the second over and bowled with a lot of determination to have the opener out who he had dropped on the first ball, bowled an excellent first over, however the openers intentions were very clear from the word go and our catching kept getting worse and worse. We managed to drop 5 catches which was not acceptable and at the end made the difference.
Overall, we managed to keep the scoring under control considering the start they were off to, they managed to score 198 runs in 20 overs, which I feel was 30 runs over what they should have. As the saying goes “Catches win matches”….
We came into bat with different opening pair, Nisar and Adnan started cautiously and never really got us off to a start we wanted. Nisar got out playing the usual aerial shot and unfortunately added to the rest. Ahmed was sent 1 down to go after the bowling and my word he did really made us proud with some excellent hitting. Due to a poor batting start that we got, I had decided to come in myself when the second wicket fell but didn’t bother the scorers much and got out cheap. However, I felt that I was still batting since I had to run for Ahmed till pretty much the end of the innings. Sameer Bhai played very well and ran extremely well with me, we managed to convert singles to doubles and tried our best but unfortunately nothing seemed enough. At the end we lost by 18 runs and we faced a very disappointing result.
As a captain I feel it is important to highlight a few things that our team has to improve on, no one like loosing but we need to give it our best shot.
Fielding - Continuously lets us down ground fielding seems like we are jogging after the ball, we keep pointing to each other and the ball wins. Fielding is simple but needs an active mind and concentration that’s it. All we have to do make sure the ball lands in our hands and our body is behind it so in case we have holes our body blocks it.
Catching – All of us need a catching session before the match, we don’t need to do any batting or bowling sessions but just fielding/catching sessions. We practice and we get better that’s the key.
Running – That’s the most simplest thing ever to do, come on guys we have been doing this ever since we were 2 or something. I hate to take names but there is one player I want to take this seriously – Ahmed I don’t know mate if you still m$%#$%@# or what but unless you are seriously injured don’t expect anyone to run for you. And if you are batting don’t ask the other batsman not to make you run cause a cricket game cannot only be won off boundaries but running makes a lot of difference so you need to work on it while batting and fielding.
Batting – A good start matters the most and whoever plays at the top needs to play with responsibility. Its much easier scoring runs off a new ball and we need to start doing that but that doesn’t mean we don’t play sensibly. Yes, we do need to take calculated risks, but if one has worked in the over use your batting skills to score singles, doubles or hit a boundary. Batting at the top needs improvement
Bowling – I feel we can bowl well if supported with good fielding however, I feel we do experiment a lot in what sort of deliveries we should bowl. One important thing to remember when playing on cement pitches is that we don’t aim to bowl a batsman out but we should aim to bowl within line and make the batsman take risks. We cannot simply just sit back giving away almost 200 runs and leave it to the batsmen we need to work on our bowling to stop teams from scoring at this rate.
I must share this with you, GCC’s captain came up to me this Friday and he said this to me.
“Waqar you have an excellent batting and bowling side, and you guys can beat any team that play in Kuwait. With that you are one of the worst fielding side and that is the only factor that stops you guys. I want to take your team for regular fielding practice.”
Can you imagine such words from another team? So guys, we know we can play cricket come on its in our blood lets just back each other up and improve on things highlighted and I am sure we will do well. I hope we give it our best shot this Friday where the venue changes and there are going to be new things tried in the match so be ready :)
2 comments:
Ofcourse a captain should lead the way.. and I dropped a very simple catch over running it. I try my best to set examples in every way and to compensate for my mistakes as well, no perfection can be expected from me as well. And to remind you in the very first match we played I did catch one off Ahmed's bowling.. I was expecting a comment from you since you do like taking names :) so was ready for this sorry missed this statement in my report :)
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