Game 7 – Milord! What a game!

Number 3 vs Madras High Court Employees
Pachaiyappas ‘C’, 18 Feb 2006.
High Court Employees won by (a mere) 25 runs.

At last, a truly competitive, exciting game of cricket, packed with incident, ebbing and flowing and keeping the spectators interested down to the very end. Well, almost to the very end. About the only thing wrong with today was the end result. We’re having to work really hard to earn our second win – and we are, we are.

The day before the match was dramatic enough, with the recruitment of our first overseas professional, the owner of the ‘dazzling comet’ himself, Mapuchi 2000 aka Axe 3:16. The late unavailability of Hui in addition to Vik and Joy being out of town meant Hui’s pal Rajesh came into the scheme of things, and he completed the eleven which assembled at Pachaiyappas. The toss duly lost, we were in the field again, which suited us fine, mainly for what one might call non-cricketing reasons. Much to the amusement of the umpire and the other team, our dear captain had a flight to catch – to the US. So he wanted to field first, open the batting and then leave immediately. Little did we (or the opposition) realize what an impact this was to have on things. But more on that later.

Tony and Arjun shared the new ball, and started steadily enough, the main incident of note being a hard drive straight back to Arjun which he was unable to hold on to. Fortunately, just as that batsman was beginning to make his reprieve count, they set off for an ill conceived run which saw iii swooping down on the ball and effecting a run out. One down with about 35 on the board, and a good period in the field for number 3 followed. Rajesh was bowling a good tight spell from one end, and Narendra replaced Tony from the other. But for a couple of wayward overs from him and some uncharacteristically sloppy work by Bulavar behind the stumps, they would have scored next to nothing until the drinks break. Practically none were coming of the bat, and the fielding was adequate too. Narendra tightened up after the break, and in tandem with Rajesh kept the runs in check until, inevitably, another run out followed, with me doing the honours this time. But then came the first of the many turning points. The opposing captain came in and proceeded to hammer the bowling to all parts. Sriram went for 16 in one over, and all the bowlers suffered. As wickets were falling at the other end, he kept up the barrage, the danger of serious injury to the boundary riders increasing with every shot. Kataan, however, won an lbw appeal against him in the middle of an excellent spell – a vital wicket, the skipper gone for a blazing 44. We dragged it back a bit amidst the usual tumbling of late wickets and a slightly expensive final over left the score at 173 for 9 at the end of the thirty overs, with four for Kataan. A par score given the outfield and the short square boundaries. A pat on the back for the fielders – with a special mention for Kishore and a brave rookie performance from Mapu.

We’d started late as it was, so keeping his flight in mind, Sriram walked out to open with Ramesh. And he batted like he had a flight to catch. The early signs were that he was going to slog a few and throw his wicket away, but in the third or fourth over, something snapped. The kitchen sink heaves he was playing were replaced by a magnificient straight six. And another. Between scrambling to save their lives and cries of “Who’s the Kataan?”, the pavillion was collapsing into war whoops and peals of laughter. For the next few overs, we were treated to some of the most sublime yet savage displays of hitting the blue sky league has had to offer, and it all came from Narahoo’s bat. The team fifty came up with Ramesh having contributed all of 8 runs. He was shaping up well too before his innings was cruelly cut short by a rather needless run out. As it turned out, Sriram wasn’t planning to hang around much longer either. He was getting late for his flight, you see. So another six, his fourth, brought up his (and, obviously, #3’s) first fifty of the season. Unfortunately he was bowled off the very next ball for a magnificent 55. Within the next 90 seconds he had gotten his pads off, wished us good luck and left the building.

Sriram’s dismissal this season has usually been the cue for the rest of the order to fold up, but not this time. With around a hundred runs still to get, Bulavar and I decided to stay at the crease and graft, and let the runs take care of themselves. And it was working, too. Extras, nudged singles and twos and the occasional aggressive shot from Bulavar (one square cut merits particular mention) kept us very much in touch and by the break, we needed just 70 off 15 overs, with 7 wickets in hand. But a couple of overs after the break I played back to one I should have been forward to, and lost leg stump. Iii was next, and despite his loss a little while later, we were still very much in the hunt. Things were getting just a bit tighter, and when Bulavar edged to the keeper, ending an outstanding innings of 23, the pendulum had swung again. We were still in touch, the target never really getting much worse than run-a-ball, but a bit of panic set in, a run out and some mistimed slogs resulted in us being dismissed 25 runs short with nearly three overs left. In terms of rate, still very gettable but our inexperience probably got the better of us in a tight chase. No dishonour there. As a team, probably our best performance apart from the win.

And for a game with so many twists and turns, there was one final sting in the tail. As we were gathering in the evening for the mandatory post match drink, guess who shows up? Narahoo, very much not in the US. The damn airline cancelled his flight!! I object, your honour, I object.

#3 was supported at the ground by Jake, Lodd and the Wretch. So near, yet so far, poor things.

In game 7, #3 was: Ramesh, Bulavar (wk), Narahoo (c), Tony, Druck, Jubbs, Kishore, Arjun, Narendra, Rajesh and Axe.