Marina2 vs Hyderabad Mughals.

It was a clash of trophy chasers when M2 played HMCC at Turf City on 2nd of May. HMCC had moved up from div 4 and hadn't yet lost a match. M2 had played lesser matches but had the same enviable position. In their only previous encounter, a friendly on the same ground, M2 had come out tops, but not without begrudging a reputation for the HMCC players. Tough, aspiring teams fighting for glory on a hot humid day without fears of rain. We had a game.

Sri won the toss and made an unwittingly brilliant decision to bat. Brilliant because by choosing to bat, we had rendered HMCC without their best batsman - who'd have played had they batted first. All the same, we had our own squad worries in that both our opening bowlers were not available for the game. A quick decision between Sri and me, and we decided to utilise our leftie trump card from the onset. Sushant opened with Ganesh and the duo got going immediately. Deft cover drives mingled with Sushant's paddle round the corner and punctuated by Ganesh's backfoot punches through point had the opposition flat. At times Niranjan Babu troubled both batsmen with tight in-swing, but the good balls were far and few between. Fifty came up in the 8th over and it brought the downfall of Ganesh who stepped out only to see the ball settle into the keeper's gloves and scythe over the bails. This brought Korean kimchi Prem to the crease who was soon to sizzle.

It took some time for Prem and Sushant to get into a scoring rhythm braving the sapping heat, disciplined bowling and outstretched fields. There were however no alarms and both batsmen looked to play to a plan. The plan to last till the drinks break at 15. Sushant was anchoring the innings while Prem began respectfully against the slow bowlers. At drinks the score was 86 and having lost only the one wicket we had the licence to create havoc.

After drinks the batsmen opened up. Sushant fell trying to cut one over point but Prem taught the Mughals a lesson or two. Two hits to sightscreen specifically. One off an overpitched delivery deserving punishment, the other deserving full respect in line and length and yet disappearing flatter and further than the first. Imtiyaz, a proud bowler, bore the brunt and I'm sure it'd have given him a nightmare that night. At 136 in the 23rd over, Prem came down the track and did himself in flight to get stumped. Meanwhile from the other end, Chandru had been playing a treatise on the leg side. His swivel pulls and dismissive flicks left us in awe. As always. But one pull too many and he too was back in the hut an over after Prem.

This brought the captain and Kiran together. One a compulsive puller, the other midwicket marauder. Only one was to come off that day. Sri played and missed and mis hit and then stepped out and missed a full toss, and the keeper put him out of his misery. Kiran meanwhile found his nick, ran very hard and put the bad ones away clinically between fielders. Gova ran hard with him and the last overs were a right frenzy. Quick runs, breathless batsmen, frantic bowlers, tired fielders and lofty balls. Haroon, Maggie, Manoj and I all visited the crease but failed to create an impact in the last overs. However the good work done earlier made sure we had 180 on the board at the close of innings. A really decent score on the Turf City B ground, easy to defend if we began well.

IF. If is a beautiful poem by Kipling. If's a tricky word. We didn't begin well. For all his Korean antics, Prem found it hard to shake off the rust. Six wides and an eleven run opening over. Chandru replaced him, but lately he's found it hard to manage the new ball. Specially, with the batsmen bent on attack. From the other end, Manoj tried honestly but with no pressure of score and some width, he found the going hard as well. It was quickly clear that we were digging a hole for ourselves. We needed to do something about the run rate then and there.

Sri stepped up to take the bull by the horns - to bowl the seventh over. Four dot balls and the HMCC ego combusted not being able to hit a slow bowler. Catch to point and we had our first wicket at 6.4 overs. It was the boost we needed. The kick up the butt, our dose of viagra. Because then came the SlowBowlers. First Sri and Maggi in tandem - choking, plugging, tightening, sucking the wind out of the HMCC batting. 2nd wicket to Maggi in the tenth over. 3rd to Maggi in the 12th over. Then I replaced Sri to bowl a new brand of Symonds' inspired halt-and-throw-flat off spin. It made run scoring a pointless frustrating exercise.

HMCC were still in game, but largely down to Niranjan Babu's batting. As long as he was at the crease we couldn't be sure of victory. So comes Sri's lollipop ploy. Lollipop delivered, batsman hits to midwicket, Kiran takes it head high 6 inches from the boundary. Only at Turf City. From then on it was a matter of time. Our wides did give us unnecessary jitters but not enough to derail plans of things. 5.33 pm, score at 146 in the 26th over, Kiran took out the last batsman leg before and we had to catch our breath before letting out the whoops and the yells and the Fucks !

A match of the trophy chasers indeed.

IF, if, we don't get over confident, and fight every game like this one - we'd be the only trophy chaser at the end of season. One game at a time, one team at a time. Helping, stepping up, backing up, fighting, not giving up - playing hard..


scorecard here: M2 v HMCC