Done by ourselves!!

Match Summary of Storm Riders Vs PCS XI on 5/8/2010 in Lincoln Park Jersey City

The loss against the Tigers was a bitter medicine to swallow. Our batting weakness was completely exposed against a bowling attack which was not express speed but bowled a consistent line and length. A lot of retrospection was done and few changes were effected. Playing XI was changed. Ramesh who went to India on vacation was replaced by Piyush and Anbu came in for Prabhu to strengthen the bowling department . The batting order was changed. The match was in the home ground under lights for the first time. The opponent team Parsippany Sports cricket XI looked like a professional outfit and again they were unbeaten in the tournament just like NJ Tigers. In the pre-match analysis we found that they are a good batting side with really strong hitters.

Karthik won the toss and elected to bat as a decent total on the board will help the bowlers to defend . Remember we are good bowling side now and the batting has failed us twice. As mentioned earlier the batting order was changed. Sriram who opened the innings in the first two matches decided to go down the order to get rid of the rustiness. Jeeva took up the challenge. Karthik was replaced at the top by Saurabh. The conditions were good except for a really strong wind which was throwing up dust at regular intervals.

The Hemants started the proceedings for PCS XI. The first over was quiet. In the second over Saurabh was caught behind of Hemant C. Again a early wicket in the innings. Rahul promoted in the order joined Jeeva. Jeeva looked in good touch and played couple of good shots before he was bowled by Punit. Karthik and Rahul steadied the ship for sometime before something phenomenal started to happen.

The batsmen were running themselves out as if they didnt want to stay in the middle. First it was Rahul who could not reach the non striker's end for a close double. The next ball karthik was given out to a very close run out call. Piyush and Hemchand spent sometime in the middle scoring 5 and 6 respectively. Piyush holed out to Ravikiran off Uppuraj. Again we were staring at a very low score in the break. Pandi who was also rusty as he hasnt played much cricket over last year could not last long. Vishwa and Hemchand were batting together and the team was again bit by the runout bee. Vishwa played a ball straight to the fielder on leg side and before he could react Hemchand joined him at the striker's end. The bowler whipped off the bails and Hem was out for 6.

Sriram and Vishwa played off some balls with Vishwa having most of the strike. He waited for the bad balls and could score couple of fours off Punith. At the slog overs Sriram was run out for 3, Vishwa holed upto Uppuraj. Sabeer and Anbu played off the last few balls and we put on a score of 69/9 in 16 overs. A very mediocre score with the highlight being 4 runouts. Most of them suicidal.

The team spirit was high because we got to a decent total and in the team huddle Karthik asked the team to stick to the basics and do not worry about the strength of PCS XI's batting. This match could be won only by trying different things and to start with Karthik bowled the first over. As always we got a wicket off the first over. Uppuraj was brilliantly caught and bowled by Karthik. This set the tone for us and we fired in some excellent overs. Sabeer opened his spell and was not his self that day. His rhythm was missing and he pitched the balls short on a slow wicket. Saurabh removed the other opener who was brilliantly caught by Hemchand at long on. Jeeva's first over was excellent as he could raise the ball of good length. Rahul completed a sharp chance at short midwicket removing Veerendra.

We had belief that we could win this as 3 quick wickets were down. Nilesh and Anand played sensibly by blocking the good balls and scoring off bad balls. After the 8 over break we came back to our routine of dropping catches couple of them put down at crucial situations. Sabeer then came for his second over with confidence. The team and the captain was expecting a fiery spell from him. Unfortunately as mentioned earlier he was not on rhythm. First couple of balls he pitched short and he was punished. He then bowled couple of wides and started bowling really slow. Remember Manoj Prabhakar bowled offspin against Jayasurya. They scored too many runs in that over. Last ball Nilesh was caught by Pandi but it was too late. Jeeva bowled the next over and the momentum was with the opponent team. Anand finished off the innings with 3 sixes of Jeeva. He scored 33 of 15 scoring a four and a four sixes. It was all over.

We can say we gave a fight but the moment our batting failed this time again against not so great bowling attack but who bowled consistently in good line and length. Our bowlers gave away too many extras something we should correct going forward.

Now please stop the RUNOUTS!!

The plus of the day was Sriram turned 28 on the very same day. The team members took the loss in right spirit and celebrated his b'day with cake, bums and a cheer. Everyone knows what went wrong and the day ended with the chasing of Sabeer by Karthik.

Summary

League - NJSBCL

Match number - 52

Storm Riders

69/9 in 16 ?(Vishwa 12, Karthik 10)

PCS XI

74/4 in 12 Overs ( Anand 33, Nilesh 21)

PCS XI won by 6 wickets

Man of the Match – Anand for his fluent 33 with the bat and a wicket

Playing 11 - Karthik*, Sriram, Piyush, Rahul, Hemchand, Saurabh, Anbu, Vishwa, Jeeva, Sabeer and Pandi.

Team Form factor

Batting – Below Average

Bowling - Below Average

Fielding – Below Average

Team Bonding - Average

Intensity – Average

Match summary prepared by Vishwa Balachandran

Tigers Roared

Match Summary of Storm Riders Vs NJ Tigers on 5/02/2010 in Lincoln Park Jersey City

After winning first two matches convincingly the team had developed a lot of confidence on all its players. However the feeling was that the team is yet to face a challenging opponent. Most of the players had a good net practice session at Hillsborough, NJ during the week. It was the first match that played at Lincoln Parks (home ground) at Jersey City. It was a bright sunny Sunday morning and the conditions were really good to play cricket. Storm Riders playing eleven was unchanged from the previous match. After negotiating few ground issues the match started. Karthik was right on calling the toss and elected to bowl first. Though the pitch was good to bat first, the decision was taken to test the batting strength of the team about chasing down a total.

NJ Tigers were off to a bad start. Amjad was the first wicket to fall; he wanted to get off from strike but probably picked a wrong fielder in the ground. It was Rahul with his quick pick up and throw right on top of the stumps where Karthik did the rest to dismiss the batsman. Due to some good catching and fielding by Storm Riders, NJ Tigers top order was completely rattled down. Nishat, Asim, Ridwan and Ahmad went back to the pavilion without disturbing the scorers much. Batsmen had no clues facing Sabeer, Saurabh, Jeeva and Hemchand. Saurabh consistently beat the batsmen and got wickets. Bowlers were really off to a very good start and at once scoreboard read 5 wickets down for 20 runs. NJ Tigers were stunned and had no clues facing the fast bowlers, until their saviors Syed Ahmed and Naveed Azam arrived to the crease. They both literally blocked all the tough balls and ran singles on some easy ones. Jeeva tried all of his deliveries to get a wicket but Naveed used his body instead of bat to play them. Karthik brought himself to bowl and also tried Rahul to break the partnership. After hitting a six of Karthik, Syed lost his wicket at an important time. Saravana the left hander played a little cameo along with Naveed who this time demonstrated that he is capable of clearing the boundaries using his bat. The final six overs proved costly to Storm Riders. NJ Tigers reached a prominent score of 81 for the loss of 7 wickets. They recovered really well after losing their whole top and middle order for nothing.

Karthik and Sriram opened the innings for Storm Riders and were threatened by some decent wicket to wicket bowling by NJ Tigers and they started to roar. Yaser Gul started off very well providing two early breakthroughs getting both Sriram and Prabhu through his excellent Yorkers. Rahul couldn’t resist the bowling and didn’t last long. After three quick wickets, there came the wall of Storm Riders none other than Hemchand. Karthik couldn’t find sweet spots on the bat but rotated strike. Both Hem and Karthik were troubled by some good attacking bowling by Naveed Azam and their captain Ahmad Saeed. Required run rate was climbing up and Karthik tried to clear the boundary and was caught at deep midwicket yards before the boundary that brought Saurabh In. Saurabh was flawless with his batting under pressure, singles were coming at ease but those were not only enough to meet the required run rate. By the time the dug-out started to believe that it is a winning partnership, Hem got out. After making comfortable 18 runs Saurabh was caught by Nishat Islam. NJ Tigers had complete control on the match and they were at driving seat. Storm Riders needed a miracle to get back in to the game but lacked real fire power with the bat. Vishwa tried to make difference but it was too late as the required run rate climbed sky high. Ramesh, Jeeva, Sabeer and Pandi couldn’t do much in the scenario where NJ Tigers rocking with the ball. The match was all over during the final over and Storm Riders were short of 16 runs.

Summary

League - NJSBCL

Match number - 51

NJ Tigers

81/7 in 16 (Syed 25, Naveed 19, Saurabh - 3/20)

Storm Riders

65 all out in 15.3 (Saurabh 18, Karthik 13, Asim - 3/11)

NJ Tigers won by 16 runs.

Man of the Match – Naveed Azam for his plucky 19 with the bat followed by two wickets for 14 runs in 4 overs.

Playing 11 - Karthik*, Sriram, Prabhu, Rahul, Hemchand, Saurabh, Ramesh, Vishwa, Jeeva, Sabeer and Pandi.

Team Form factor

Batting – Below Average

Bowling - Good

Fielding – Below Average

Team Bonding - Average

Intensity – Poor

Match Summary prepared by Karthik Narayanan

Last Over Miracle

Match Summary of Storm Riders Vs Edison CC in Edison

The morning was hazy, a bad condition for cricket. The opponent were giants, on papers at least ( five wins out of five). The game was on their home ground, first time full matted experience for the team.It was indeed big match for all of us. The morale of the team was high after winning against Aryans, although teams highest run getter and two MOM winner Hemchand was not playing, Ramesh Rajan was back with the team. Toss was crucial, and Karthik won the toss again, making it his 6 out of 6 toss wins, so we elected to bat first. Saurabh said “my sixth sense says that we are going to win this match”, to which Rahul replied “my sixth, seventh, eight senses are all are saying the same”.

Teams: Storm Riders( Karthikeyan Narayanan* †, Sriram Kannan, Sabeer M, Saurabh Kherdekar, Prabhu Samuels, Pandidurai Ganapathy, Vishwanath Balachandran, Rahul Pandey, Hariharan Subramanian, Ramesh Rajan, Arunkumar Kasi)

Edison Cricket Club(Karthick Ramani, Krisahna Kurpachi, Balwinder Katoch, Maha Swaminathan, Happy Manocha, Sanjay Sharma*, Abhishek Dwivedi, Srinivas Nathani, Bala Muthuswamy, Vipin Sharma, Rajesh Kuwar)

Match started by a prolific opening bowling spell by Srinivas and Abhishek. Our opening pair lost their wicket without disturbing the scoresheet, Sriram could not repeat the effort of last match in which he scored 26 runs, and he got out after a stumbling catch by Krisahna. Now, Sabeer and Saurabh were in the crease, they looked as they were off to a good partnership but then Saurabh departed after scoring just 2 runs again the bowler was Srinivas.Prabhu didn’t help the cause either and gave away his wicket to Abhishek scoring just 3 runs. At this point it was certain that we are off to the worst start.Sabeer after surviving 17 balls gave his wicket again to awesome Srinivas scoring 5 runs. This brought Vishwa and Pandidurai on the crease, who was hungry for runs and a better performance. Srinivas and Edison CC were on the role at this point of time. It was due to sensible and attacking batting display during the middle overs by Rahul (scored 15) with support from Pandi (scored 13) gave the only good partnership of the innings. In the end we saw a crisp six over mid wicket by Hari boosting the team morale and by then bowlers believed that they got at least a total to defend on, Storm Riders collapsed on 57 with 2 balls left. Edison CC was set to chase a low target of 58 runs in 96 balls.

In between the innings, Karthik boasted the team not to lose hope and stick to the basics. As we knew it will be very difficult for any team to chase 58 runs, given our bowling strength and weather conditions. The team’s enthusiasm and energy level was very high. All we need was some early wickets and good start.

It all started after Sabeer getting the first wicket of Krisahna in his second over Karthik taking a good catch behind the wicket. These brought tempo of the team high. It was followed by a hard catch made look easy by Rahul at his favorite position in covers of K Ramani, who was in good form throughout the tournament. The team’s enthusiasm was amazing to watch. Sabeer gave us a very good start also acknowledged by Saurabh on the other side, they both created good pressure on the opponent by bowling at right places. We saw first bowling change in Vishwa who also did not disappoint us by taking quick wicket of Happy Manocha. Now come the man of the game, Karthik, every time the ball is in his hands the batsman got puzzled by his sudden variations. Karthik along with Vishwa balled consistently in mid-overs and during the end. Karthik was all over the opponents taking four important catches. The catch of Sanjay Sharma was a tough one followed by a critical runout of Maha. Rahul took an important catch at long on. Although runs were hard to get, but due to some average fielding, they were able to get them. Ramesh made a marvelous stop by saving a potential boundary. When it came down to the end of the innings, everyone thought that we were 10 runs short. Edison CC just require 2 runs of the last over with 2 wickets remaining; only a miracle can save us now.

The Phenomenon Last Over:Ball was in Karthik’s hand, Bala Muthuswamy the striker, Vipin Sharma in non-striking end. 2 runs require of 6 balls, 1 run to draw. Each and every fielder was on their toes, wanting to stop a single. First ball, Bala tried to loft the ball but was beaten. Second ball, Bala could not read the ball and was bowled!!!, this bring the opponent to a standstill, who by this time were almost sure that they will win. This brought last batsman Rajesh Kuwar on strike, facing third ball, it was a dot ball, went to Saurabh (behind the wicket). Rajesh was perplexed and tension showed in his face, while the intensity grew exponentially by this time and the pressure was on both teams. Here comes the fourth ball, again the same result, ball went to Saurabh’s Hand, pressure grew immensely as Vipin called Rajesh for a small talk in between, asking him tocalm down. Fifth ball, what a delivery it was, again the batsman could not touch the ball; it all came down to that final ball now. Again Vipin on the non-strinking end called Rajesh and had a chat, we all knew this is a do or die situation, the intensity; pressure blew out of the box now, it was a nail biting scenario in the stands and over the field. The last and the final ball: Rajesh on strike, on his mind probably to run at any cost, Karthik was set to unfold the last ball drama, and he bowled his best delivery, he bowled Bala of the last ball and secured Storm Riders a victory by 1 run. The whole world for Rajesh, Vipin and Edison CC came to a standstill and joy outburst in the Storm Riders team every one hugged Karthik for his brilliant bowling and temperament.

WOW WHAT A GAME…. THIS IS CRICKET FOR YOU FOLKS!! ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THE FIELD!!! But in the end it all came to one old adage: FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE!!!

Summary -

League: NJSBCL

Match Number: 101

Storm Riders:

57/10 in 15.4( Rahul 15, Pandidurai 13, Srinivas- 5/19, Abhishek 3/12)

Edison CC:

56/10 in 16( Sanjay 12, Maha 11, Karthik- 3/10, Sabeer- 3/15, Saurabh- 2/14)

Man of the Match – Karthik for involving in eight dismissals out of ten and bowling a double wicket maiden last over. 4 catches, 1 Runout and 3 wickets. 4-1-10-3.

Team Form Factor-

Batting: Below Average

Bowling: Excellent

Fielding: Average

Team Bonding: Excellent

Intensity- Excellent

Match report prepared by Rahul Pandey