The second weekend of OICT showcased 3 important games ( all from north group): NCC vs UCC, PPCC vs RPCC and CCC vs AHCC. While RPCC and UCC continued with their bad luck and lost second consecutive games, CCC and PPCC stood on the other side of the spectrum with 2/2 wins!!
Batting first, NCC started things off pretty nicely both in the tournament and their first game as top 3 out of 4 batsmen (Uday-29, Rajesh-30 & Anand-20) were in the run making business. UCC's bowlers were not left with much hopes with Sunny Haider & Subodh Kumar being the only decent bowlers claiming 2 and 1 wicket each respectively and controlling NCC for total of 139/7. NCC's bowlers came out strongly with the all-round cameo by Rajesh Dantuluri who claimed 3 important wickets and gave a helping hand in sending UCC home with 6 balls to spare and 19 more runs to chase. Anuraag Pandey was the only UCC batter with the bat that was actually working as he made brilliant 37!!
Same day, Same venue, just a couple hours later, RPCC was whacked out by PPCC as they were bundled at 103 runs with the lost of 9 wickets in their 20 overs. It seems like 'Punjabi Power' got a little weaker in front of 'Polaris Power' as only 2 out of their 8 Singhs were on the song- Jwalant Singh (26) and Harpreet Singh (23). PPCC finished things in regular fashion and made the target look more embarrassing than what it actually was as they chased it with more than 3 overs and 8 wickets remaining. Abheesh Chandran proved once again and stamped his name in OICT's leading run scorers with back to back solid performances as he made brilliant 41* with great support from Shanker Vedam (39) which left the bowlers totally clueless.
Sunday marked another victory for the hosts CCC but did not turn out too happy for 'All Happy Cricket Club' (AHCC) as they got 'Spun' by CCC's spinners both ways (Leg & off) as the latter lost to the defending champions by 35 runs. AHCC were looking in great shape with their disciplined fielding and bowling performance as the ball was finding Sridhar Vedantam's safest hands who took some great catches and fielding to leave CCC's batsmen thinking all around. The later part of the innings looked much better for CCC's batting as their opener Murthy Ayyagari (43*) started exploding all around with some help from Senthil, Shyam and Sanjay (all 10 each) and CCC gave a target of 125 to the 'Happy' team. AHCC did not start their innings in a perfect manner as the Swinger- Madhu Dhanagiri from CCC blew 2 crucial wickets for them right in the beginning. Things just started looking a little brighter for AHCC as Akhil Dhyani (26*) and Bhavin Patel (17) looked stronger on the crease when the spinners spun the match away from them with leg spinners Shyam Kasthuri and Jatin Batra claiming 2 and 1 wickets each and off-spinners Murthy Ayyagari and Rushit Mehta bagging one wicket each. Everything came in place for CCC towards the end as wicket keeper Ram Ghadde joined the party with 5 important dismissals that led to to a comfortable victory for the champs by 35 runs.
For team standings and other tournament related news keep following the official OICT website and of course the brilliant Blog Slog! ;)
As you all know next weekend is a long and off-weekend for 20-20 games due to Labor Day holiday on Monday. I know you guys can't wait to get in the action once again when the tournament continues on Sept 12th. In the meantime, I thought of having some fun and playing an interesting trivia game! So, I will ask you 3 questions from International cricket and lets see who can come back with the correct answers first! The winner will get the grand prize of being honored and published in the great great blog of none other than aapka Jatin! ;)
So are you Ready?.......
Q1: Two Indian Cricketers have batted all 5 days of a test match. One of them is ML Jyasimha. Who is the other one?
Q2: Who was Daniel Vettori's 300th victim in Tests?
Q3: Which team holds the record for scoring highest total in first innings of a test match in a losing cause?
Please email your answers in order to jatinbatra83@gmail.com. Some food for your thoughts...
Have a good and safe long weekend folks!! See you in 2 weeks....
