Again the competition was at the highest level with a lot at stake during week 8 of the Washington Cricket League (WCL) Premier Division matchups.
Zolon vs Nitro:
Zolon won the toss and elected to bat on a nice and bouncy green wicket at buck lodge. The outfield was a bit thick and not the usual lightning fast outfield players are used to seeing at buck lodge this late in the summer.
Zolon Batting:
Srini and Gourav opened the batting for Zolon. Zolon’s top order batting has been their Achilles heel this season and the pattern continued when Gourav got out in the first over of the game without scoring. Steven Taylor went in and didn’t last long and got out playing a loose shot after he had scored 5 runs. Steven has tremendous skills as a batsman and will be disappointed with his returns in the last 2 games and will really want to score big in the next set of games. Kaushal came in and played patiently for a few overs and tried to get a partnership going with Srini who was batting at the other end.
Srini chipped an incoming delivery of Neel to short mid-wicket and Kaushal got out caught behind in the next over going for an ambitious cover drive to a ball from Milroy that swung away and would have been a big wide otherwise. Zolon were 25/4. Digant and Fahad had a good partnership and took the score to the mid 60’s after which Fahad got out LBW to a straight ball from Ruchir that hit his back leg but would have gone over the stumps considering the bounce at buck lodge. Raghav came in and had a good partnership with Digant and both players started increasing the run rate with Raghav hitting a big six of Narayan and Digant scoring a boundary of the same bowler interspersed with singles and the occasional 2. Then came the crucial moment of the game when both Raghav and Digant out to Rama of consecutive balls and from a decent position of 100 odd for 4 with about 14 overs to go including the batting power play, Zolon slipped to 108/6. Rahi and Juber were together yet again doing a repair job by rotating the strike and were responsible for taking Zolon to 140+ with a decent partnership of around 30 runs.
Both of them got out trying to up the ante in the final few overs. Vivek struck a boundary and got out in the final over with 4 balls of the Zolon innings remaining. Zolon got rolled over for 155, a sub-par total on a good buck-lodge wicket. Rama was the pick of the Nitro bowlers with 4 wickets and Milroy was economical with a couple of crucial strikes. The spinners, whom Nitro rely heavily on didn’t do quite well because they failed to adapt to the green top in terms of the bowling speed Vs the matting wicket they are used to playing in.
Nitro Batting:
Zolon started with a bang by bowling Rushi of the 5th ball of the innings to a ball that moved in, stuck his elbow and cannoned in to the stumps. This was the start Zolon needed. They were fired up and Vivek struck by getting Narayan play across the line and the leading edge was taken by Kaushal at covers. Vivek struck once again in his next over by having the next batsman LBW playing across the line to a straight ball. Nitro didn’t have 20 on the board at this point and need a partnership to give them a chance which is exactly they got with Prashant and Sandeep willing to block and spend time on the wicket. They batted for well over 10 overs, runs were hard to come by but their strategy was to consolidate, keep wickets in hand and go for it later in the innings.
Amidst all this, Gourav bowled a tight spell of 5 overs for less than 10 and seemed to be continuing from his spell in the last game against AFCA. Kaushal came in and broke the partnership in his 3rd over by getting Prashant stumped to a ball which didn’t turn. Milroy was the next batsman and made his intentions clear by hitting Kaushal for a 6 over long on but didn’t last long after the 2nd drinks break when Gourav was rewarded for this tight lines with 2 wickets in the first over after the break. From a decent position of 86/4, Nitro slumped to 86/6 and Kaushal dismissed the next batsman to make it 90 odd for 7.
This game was Zolon’s to lose from this point onwards. Sandeep had been batting patiently all this while and unfortunately for Nitro, he had to go out of the game due to severe cramps. Rahi got Rama out to a quick delivery that crashed in to his stumps in the power play. Nitro had to get 50 runs with 1 wicket in hand and made a good fight of it with Raghav and Neel batting sensibly with some poor bowling from Zolon who tried too many things to get the last wicket instead of stopping the runs which would have forced the mistake. The equation was 23 runs in 6 overs when Kaushal was brought back and he struck on the 5th ball of his over when he got Raghav stumped.
Zolon’s bowlers had once against compensated for a lackluster batting display to take their side to victory. All the bowlers complemented each other and did well – Kaushal took 3 wickets and Vivek, Gourav and Rahi took 2 each. Nitro will definitely rue this opportunity because 1 or 2 decent partnerships could have won them the game. Zolon will feel good about this because they have won 2 in 2 now and yet have a lot to improve in terms of batting.
UMBC vs Cosmos:
UMBC took on Cosmos on a gloomy Sunday afternoon in a game that was important for both teams sitting in the bottom half of the points table. Electing to bat first, UMBC got off to a shaky start losing Minhaj Shahid in the third over. Rahul Banhot was joined by Shahid Hanif. Just as a partnership was beginning to develop Shahid got run out leaving UMBC two down. Rahul and Anand followed in quick succession leaving UMBC in a spot of bother at 4 down with less than 50 on the board. Samuel Lalzare took the innings forward and a scored a fluent 57. Other batsmen chipped in with double digit scores giving UMBC a chance to post a decent score on the board. Mr. consistent James George again provided the fireworks at the end of the innings, scoring his third consecutive 50. He scored 51* and UMBC ended their innings with a score of 210/9. Ashwin Boini took 3 wickets for Cosmos whereas Pradeep Reddy took 2.
Chasing 211 to win, Cosmos got off to a bad start losing Vijay Katkuri for 0 in the second over. While RaviTeja Reddy was holding one end, Cosmos kept losing wickets at the other end. With the middle order collapsing, Cosmos was soon restricted to 67/6. Needing almost 150 to win with just 4 wickets in hand, it seemed like winning was a formality for UMBC as it was their game to lose. But as they say, it’s not over until it’s over.
First a 62 run partnership for the 7th wicket between Sandeep Payardha and Dinesh Chandrasekaran, and then a 74 run partnership for the 8th wicket between Sandeep and Dharma Gade brought Cosmos back into the game. At one stage Cosmos needed 51 to win in 6 overs with 3 wickets in hand. A couple of bad overs from UMBC along with the sloppiness in the field meant that Cosmos needed just 8 runs to win in last 2 overs with 2 wickets in hand.
Samuel Lalzare bowled a tight over conceding just 2 runs and taking a wicket leaving Cosmos with 6 runs to win off the last over with 1 wicket in hand. UMBC captain Rikin Parikh took the responsibility of bowling the make-or-break over of the game. With just 1 wicket away from victory, UMBC let the game slip twice in one over as Roshan Marpu was dropped twice in the last over, the second drop catch giving Cosmos the final run needed to overhaul UMBC’s score. Sandeep scored 70 whereas RaviTeja made 34. Samuel took 3 wickets for UMBC whereas Austin Aluvathingal, Ishraq Ali and Rikin Parikh took 2 wickets each.
Tigers vs Kensington:
This is one the biggest historical rivalries in the WCL, and Tigers ended up winning this encounter convincingly by 9 wickets. Kensington won the toss and elected to bat first, and despite having a formidable top order, the team was able to score only 62 runs. A brilliant opening spell by Hamayun Mirza, who took 6 wickets for 19 runs, and some intelligent bowling by Dawood Ahmad (2 wickets) restricted Kensington to a low total.
In response, Tigers chased down the total in 10.3 overs with 9 wickets to spare. It was yet another successful opening partnership of 50 runs for the team. Akeem Dodson, a standout performer for the Tigers throughout this season, hit a quick-fire 30 in 19 balls while his opening partner, Aniruddh Roy finished the chase on 18 not out. Tigers are currently the leaders in the WCL Premier Division with a record of 7 wins and 1 loss.
