Disgraceful Beginning and a Disgraceful End

I was thinking that instead of writing a match report, I should be writing a get together party report, since that would be most appropriate. ;)

Our typical day starts with half of our team in Jaguar Beauty parlour applying creams on their faces, rather than warming up and practicing. If things keep on going like this, I believe that very soon some padicure, manicure and facial services will be launched as well. Its quite ironic that instead of batting and bowling averages we worry more about maintaining the color of our face and instead of trying concentrating on the ball during fielding we concentrate on how to save our nails!

The match was played with Casuals whom we defeated by 70 runs last time. I think over confidence might have been our undoing this time as Casuals, taking the benefit of our 'casual' approach to the match, defeated us by 9 wickets with 8 overs to spare!

Nisar and Wicky opened the innings for us and Wicky started off confidently with a powerful pull to get him his first boundary. He seems to have all the shots in the book and one waits for a big innings. He couldn't last long as an opener since he edged a delivery and it went straight to his face probably scratching his nose. The impact would have been much worse then it looked since he wasn't able to continue and decided to send in Bilal. Nisar was not his usual self as well. He was not able to time his favourite cut shot and was dropped in the covers. He was not able to cash on the life given to him, and was bowled in the same over.

Sameer Bhai came in next and together with Bilal tried to build a innings. Bilal looked scratchy to say the least and fidgeted around in the crease with minimum impact. Sameer Bhai was slower than usual as well and their partnership was sucidal for us. In the first 8 overs we only had around 40 runs on the board. Bilal tried to up the run rate but of the first aggressive shot he played he was out caught 15 meters inside the boundary. Qadeer Bhai went in next and initited his classy shots from the word go. He hit 4 boundaries in the first over he faced. Sameer Bhai took a leaf from his book and hit splendid boundaries as well. In those 3 overs we had 43 runs.

Incidently due to the slow start it was now clear that we needed a run rate of 15 runs per over to reach the fighting total of 200 runs.

As usually is the case in such a scenario wickets started to tumble. Qadeer Bhai went after a splendid catch on the boundary. Sameer Bhai, Wicky, Amir Bhai, Ahmed and Rizwan all went quickly with few boundaries here and there. In the end Sajjad Bhai provided a bit of resistance and we dragged our way to 160.

If we had a chance of defending this score we needed top class bowling and fielding right from the first ball. Anees Bhai bowled the first over and kept the runs under 8. Wicky took the new ball to utilize his experience of playing with Casuals. But the benefit was mutual and their batsmen hit him freely. Anees Bhai's next over saw 3 boundaries and a very easy chance was dropped on the boundary by Ahmed. He either misjudged, was quite lethargic to come forward and take the catch or wasn't expecting the catch at all.

I guess the only solution to this is that we all must keep on watching the batsman right from the time the bowler starts his runup. This I believe could resolve almost all of our judgement problems.

Almost all bowlers were tried, Nisar was brought in early as well, but none seemed to make any difference. The shabby fielding display didn't help either and as many as 4 chances went down including a stumping. In the end they raced to the target of 160 in 12 overs.

Its one all with Casuals now. And we need our best performance next time we face them. We also need a bit of practice before we go in so that some of our out of form batsmen regain their form.