The Season-2 of "Quick Fire T-20"- as its more commonly known as- looks more promising and exciting after a roller-coaster kick start it had last weekend with 4 amazing games. While UCC and PPCC were the first ones to go from North Group, UKCC started the tourney on the Super Sunday by taking on CINCY from the South Group.
UCC batted first in their first game and only managed to pull together total of 114 runs with some handful contributions from Suchit (38) and Praveen (29). But it was PPCC who defended nicely the nature of this format and proved once again that on a given day any team could be a champion by showing their disciplined bowling, decent fielding and chasing the target as a team. Chasing the total of just 115, Polaris never looked back with the fine top order performance and did fairly well in the end with the 'Man of the Match'- Abheesh Chandran's solid 29 that cruised them to an easy victory with 4 overs remaining!
On the other side of the Ohio's map, UKCC wrecked apart Cincy's batting order as the latter only managed to make 90 runs in their 20 overs! UKCC chased the target quite comfortably with the loss of 5 wickets and 18 balls remaining.
The Sunday afternoon seemed more sunny and blooming as runs started flowing from all around. The 2 important games were played during the later hours with the defending Champions and hosts CCC taking on RPCC in their first game from the North Group; and UKCC (playing back to back games) trying their good luck against UC CC from the South Group.
Playing with a less stronger team, CCC was taken by surprise with RPCC's 'Sherdil' performance as their batsmen started hitting the champion bowlers left and right even with the initial couple blows by swinger Madhu. Things started looking much better when the CCC spinners Murthy and Gautam Kini (spinner for a change) put their disc-breaks on the Punjabi batsmen. But it was Puneet (41) and Sudheer (34) that took RPCC to a challenging total of 136/9 in the end. CCC started the chase with a cool breeze as both openers Murthy & stylish Orville were looking rock solid and runs were rather coming in the form of extras. Just when things looked easy for CCC, RPCC sent Murthy home and Orville did not stay much longer either. On one side Mihir Jhaveri was giving no chances to the punjabi bowlers, the other side did not look too bright as captain Bharat got out for just 8 runs followed by Jatin, who was the victim of a bad decision; and Dinesh who joined him in the pavallion in just couple balls. It was the player of the match- Sanjay Patel and Mihir Jhaveri, both with equal contribution of 25 each that took CCC home with the last over win and kept defending champions' hopes flying high!
The Southern afternoon turned the tables around for UKCC as they were defeated in their second match of the day by UC CC in a close finish. Opener Niranjan Deshpande from UC CC made a strong 38 and got some help from the middle order- Aravind (22) and Prahit (21) to take the team to a decent total of 135/7 as Ketu from UKCC gave some hard time to the batsmen and claimed 3 wickets. Akshay's brilliant 57 went in vain as UC CC bowlers Prahit, Aravind and Natwar claimed 2 wickets each and destroyed UKCC's batting order. UKCC lost the match by mere 13 runs.
While the tournament has just begun, one day of play and entertainment has given a tasteful for what lies ahead. With midwest cricket summer in the form of longer version (35 ovs) coming to an end as teams compete in semi-finals and finals of MCT and MOCL, this shorter and much exciting version will be the next most talked and discussed thing!!
I will try my best to provide you guys as we say in India "Aakhon dekha haal" just in case you miss out any fun....so, stay tuned and bare with me as I come from totally NO writing experience at all! I know you couldn't have guessed it otherwise....;)
Next Games: PPCC vs RPCC - Aug 29
NCC vs UCC - Aug 29
CCC vs AHCC - Aug 30
(For the latest tournament schedule please check the website's homepage)
Let's hope these games live to the same spirit if not more and provide everything T-20 is all about- Drama, Excitement, Entertainment and ya....Spectator's Cricket!!
4 comments:
Good start to the tournament.. must not forget about some good bowling at depth by abheesh and abhinav for polaris. Thanks for the blog Jatin, keep'em coming!!!!
Nice post Jatin, keep up the good work. Small correction--Polaris beat UCC in 15.5 overs not in 19 overs.
Sorry Mallik...will update it. Thanks for the compliments guys! :)
Let's hope CCC puts a Sherdil performance today!
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