2011: Match 5: Vs G-XI: Won: By 22 Runs

Bombay Boys were embroiled in yet another controversy this weekend, this time in their emphatic win against a seasoned long timer G-XI at the Hopkins Grounds. Read on for more details.

Bombay Boys posted 119 runs against their opponents in the first innings of the match; due credit to a fabulous innings played by KT, probably the first ever in the history of Bombay Boys to have played an unbeaten 20 overs; a terrific knock of 47 in 47 balls just shy of  a half century. KT has 3 intelligent fours and 1 rock solid 6 to his credit. He was aided in part by Monty scoring 29 off 34 balls, who also enjoyed sending the ball rolling to the boundary every now and then, with one 4 and 3 hard sixes. Bombay Boys also uncovered a surprise scorer in the form of Abhishek Taralekar who turned out to be just as good with the bat – scoring 17 runs off 19 balls. To their credit, opener Swaroop and batting one-down Jitesh made decent useful contributions and pitched in taking the total to a decent 100+ score. All in all, great strike rates and a a strong batting display despite a couple of misses. Good friendly sledging the first half of the match, so much so, that to an outsider, it wouldnt have been evident whether a person calling out the comments to a fielder was encouraging him or simply pulling his leg regardless of which team he belonged to.

On a warm morning, with temperatures in the late 70s, the boundaries on both on and off sides were relatively short and the outfield was fast if somewhat lumpy in places. It was apparent that any shot piercing the inner ring of fielders was likely to go for four, and that the fielding would be important. Unfortunately, this was a day when the Bombay Boys were not at their best in that respect, with just-nicked drives from the G-XI batsmen seeming to rush to the boundary. Dropped catches at critical moments did not help either. G-XI were 9/1 during the 3^rd over and continued without loss of any further wickets till they reached 67. Not good. 4s and 6s were equal if not more rampant in this innings. Bombay Boys definitely were more aggressive in their bowling attack than the previous match and intentional or not, one could see the marked difference before and after the 10 over break. However, the highlight, in a funny sense, of the match was when Sumit from G-XI was dimissed for a well timed catch taken by Abhishek during Jitesh’s over – the very basis for the controversy. The leggie ruled it a no-ball and the neutral umpire overruled the same. Sumit “fumed” – and that is an understatement - all around the pitch and back at his side of the pavilion shouting “I am the main player, how can you give me out !” and the captain and a couple of other players too resorting to name calling and foul language. Rightly said, If that were the case, Sachin whould never be out ! Complaints and back talking with the umpire went on for a few; while G-XI talked about they knowing that “something is going on between the umpire and Bombay Boys”. Finally, the match resumed and a couple of consecutive wickets also brought forth the same kind of resigned attitude from the G-XI team.

So, Jitesh took the wicket of the “main player” of the match and like someone said “Bombay Boys ka umpiring karte karte ek aur umpire ka career barbaad”. Whether Sumit could have changed the match around is something that we would never know, but that is where it all started going downhill for G-XI. The team went from 73/3 in the 15^th over to all out in the 20^th over with one ball to spare.

All in all, a pleasant and enjoyable game played in the right spirit. 5 matches down 6 more to go. We now start to face the tougher teams of the group and we need to make sure that our wins against the newbies do not make us complacent. We still got a ways to go. The cheering stand this match had more spectators than the last couple of matches with Sourabh and Bhavin making both the match and the sideline comments way more interesting.

Our next match will be against the Twin City Twisters on Sunday June 19^th at 9:00 AM, Roseville.

Scores as always have been uploaded on www.cricketmn.com

For more on Bombay Boys : http://bombay-boys.blogspot.com

One Team. One Dream.

Cheers,

Deepa.

2011: Match 4: Vs Indian Knights: Won: By 1 Run

In their 4^th match of the season, Bombay Boys won against the Indian Knights by a sheer single run in a nail biting finish of a match. (After their 3^rd match against Desi Devils was washed out and hence drawn). Bombay Boys openers Saurabh (VC) and KT opened beautifully going strong right to their 54-run partnership, with  brilliant strike rates (Saurabh - 24 off 24 balls and  KT – 39 off 38 balls), raking in some big ones as well at the right moments. Both openers have 3 4s and 1 sixer to their credit.

Skipper’s plan B went into action once the partnership crossed 45/0 in 7 overs and in walked Paras at the 1-down position instead of the original batting line-up, when Saurabh got run out (?) in the 9^th over. Unfortunately, Paras’ flick got caught behind and he had to walk back to the pavilion. Swaroop who walked in at #4 set up a quick easy-on-the-eyes running between the wickets along with KT scoring fast singles and doubles until the 13^th over when KT got run-out. Monty walked in at the 3-down position and along with Swaroop took the score from 77 to 112, again the both of them maintaining near perfect run rates. The 16^th over saw the departure of Swaroop after yet another run-out and “Boom Boom” Pahuja (as Chichi has recently christened him) and Monty breezed through the rest of the innings, both of them getting out in the last over after putting up a formidable total of 147 on the scoreboard.

Indian Knights opened their batting innings in a slow yet steady fashion inching their way along to 45 at the end of 10 overs after the loss of one wicket in the 10^th over. Post break is when it all started going downhill. 17 runs in the 11^th over, 11 in the 12^th. To top it off, the Indian Knights team then pulled a cheap stunt at the end of the 12^th over when opener Pankaj literally pranced out of the field quoting a “Retired Hurt” enabling their star batsman Vamshi to walk in and do his magic. Vamshi, the batting points #1 of the tournament so far, has (including this match) made 140 runs in 4 matches. It wasn’t a surprise then that his team banked on him to pull them out of the swamp, but to use a “Retired Hurt” was a tad too much. At no expense should this have been tolerated by Bombay Boys. Agreed, that Pankaj might have then tried a hit wicket “suicide” shot, but it would have atleast cost them a ball. Vamshi, to give the guy due credit, succeeded in taking the score from 73 to 142, scoring 42 huge runs off just 19 balls, majorly at Monty’s expense, who in his attempt to get Vamshi’s wicket got mercilessly hammered. In the history of Bombay Boys, their second best score till date, seemed woefully inadequate as the team struggled to bowl and field and valianty defend a great score.

But ultimately the revival by Abhishek and KT was thrilling enough. With 9 runs from 2 overs remaining, Abhishek bowled perfect line and length to ensure that there were no extras and no room for mistakes, also taking a wicket parallely. The last over was handed to KT as the supporters watched every play with bated breath.

It started with 6 runs needed off 6 balls and finally came down to 3 runs in 1 ball. The final “run-out” done by AP2/Swaroop happened towards the end of the 2^nd run – leading to a huge controversy of whether it was a run-out or not. Not – defining the match as a Draw, and Run-out defining it as a win in favour of Bombay Boys. The leg umpire from the Indian Knight’s team is still not sure and says the benefit of doubt should go to the batsman, the neutral umpire has overruled his decision, calling it a run-out and hence, declaring it a win for the Bombay Boys.

The Indian Knights team has cried “foul”, called the neutral umpire “biased” and decided to take their complaint to the board asking for a decision. Considering that the neutral umpire is sticking to his decision, in all probability, the decision will not be reversed. However, the board’s decision is yet to be announced.

One major question that needs to be addressed is: What really does a Retired Hurt mean without any injuries? Since when has lack of stamina or tiredness meant a "Retired hurt"? Letting an opponent railroad us like that is going to prove expensive beyond words.

That being said, Bombay Boys needs to hugely work on their fielding skills. (4s due to inaccurate fielding, fumbles, dropped catches). Defending a 147 score should not have come down to this. Period.

Scores as always have been uploaded on http://www.cricketmn.com

For a history of Bombay Boys in the MTBC tournament: http://bombay-boys.blogspot.com

Cheers,
Deepa Duraisamy
One Team. One Dream.

2011: Match 3: Vs Desi Devils : DRAWN (Due to Rains)

No synopsis written due to the match having ended in a washout midway through the match and the points being equally divided between the two teams.

2011: Match 2: Vs Churchill Cheetahs: Won: By 7 Wickets

Churchill Cheetahs, a first timer in the MTBC tournament, beat India XI, one of the tough contenders in this tournament, in their first match of the season. But CCH could not carry the intensity from their opening onslaught into their second match, especially one against the Bombay Boys.

After losing the toss to CCH and having to field, BB still seemed to have got off to a good start. The first 10 overs showed tons of promise and a very quick successive FOW made interesting an otherwise very bland match between the two teams. Catches were abundant, runouts precise. Excellent stats from right arm bowlers Nitin 4-0-8-2 and Abhishek 3-0-6-3 ensured that the CCH run scorecard stayed within achievable limits. In all, BB only awarded 10 extras which was pretty neat. A special note about Nitin who had his mind set of taking out the CCH alleged all-rounder KLN, which he did – by taking a well-timed catch and having KLN return to the pavilion on a duck ! An all round bowling-fielding team effort resulted in CCH getting bundled out for a measly 55 at the end of 15 overs. That there were 5 ducks in the CCH batting lineup is another notable statistic indeed !

BB opened their batting innings with Swaroop and Ketan. After losing their left-handed opener Arvind to a work-related transfer, BB now seems to have a found a dependable opener in Swaroop, even though this innings might not give him much to boast about unfortunately. Vijay stepped in when Swaroop was caught behind in the 3^rd over and KT and Vijay inched their way to build a 28 run partnership of the required 56. Considering that there were 2 maiden overs and an additional 3^rd one where there were no runs made off the bat and even though and the average batting strike rate was quite low, for the BB batsmen it was a slow and steady yet positive battle. After KT was runout in the 12^th over, Monty and Paras worked together to finish up the reminder, with Monty hitting a strong four on the legside on a no-ball wrapping it up finally. Bombay Boys won the match by 7 wickets at the end of 14 overs.

We now face Desi Devils on May 22 2011 9:00AM at the University Van Cleve field. BB is now slowly getting into the phase where throughout the season, it will be on and off, missing a few of its seasoned players and the next generation of batsmen/bowlers will now get more opportunities to showcase their talent. It will be interesting to see how that shapes up.

Scores as always have been uploaded on http://www.cricketmn.com

For a history of Bombay Boys in the MTBC tournament: http://bombay-boys.blogspot.com

Cheers,
Deepa Duraisamy
One Team. One Dream.

2011: Match 1 : Vs V3BD : Won by 30 runs

Close on the heels of India clinching the title in the World Cup 2011 tournament, the new captain Ashish Prabhu, hereby referred to as AP2, and his boys were off to a good start in the 2011 MTBC tournament with Bombay Boys winning against V3Boys Dalakties a.k.a V3BD in their very first match of the season.

After winning the toss and deciding to bat first, openers Saurabh and KT were off to an initial good start when Saurabh fell prey to probably avoidable call-confusion running between the wickets. In stepped Jitesh and the duo then played it steady, taking quick singles and doubles and making the best of the loose balls for about 6 overs taking the total to 41 runs off 9 overs. One over before break time, Monty stepped in when KT’s shot went for a catch and he had to walk back to pavilion.

At the end of 10 overs, the Bombay Boys scorecard read 47 runs. The second half of the innings slowed down the run counter as wickets fell in quick succession starting with Jitesh’s wicket in the 12th over. This was one of 4 wickets taken by the V3BD bowler CVS against the Bombay Boys. In the 14th over Monty joined KT in the pavilion as well when the umpire ruled him caught behind despite protests that the bat did not touch the ball. The batting lineup started to disintegrate with Bombay Boys losing 2 more wickets in the 15th over and 1 in the 16th over. However, Vijay Pahuja stood in steady for a while and played some well timed shots helping take the Bombay Boys total to a 100+ score aided by a couple of runs by Chakra, Satchit and Nitin each. Bombay Boys completed their 20 over innings at 105 all out with Nitin being run out on the last ball.

V3BD started their batting innings playing patiently and steadily. Needless to say, BB bowlers maintained momentum and kept up tight fielding as they tried their level best to secure wickets. Nitin got hit to a couple of strong sixes/fours as he bowled full tosses. Abhishek had a better day as he took the wicket of Satish and Siva, the V3BD openers who were just beginning to settle in after having hit a couple of sixes and fours. But it was the captain AP2 who took centerstage in the bowling attack taking home a 4-wicket haul, aided by Monty and KT taking 2 wickets and 1 wicket respectively. The V3BD batting line-up resembled a crumbling pack of cards with the BB bowlers doing their job well and most of the fielders doing an excellent job and taking precise big-mistake-if-dropped catches like Chakra, Vijay and KT. A quick runout of the last man standing, performed by KT and Abhishek sealed the BB victory winning by 30 runs.

I should not forget to thank and appreciate brilliant sledging efforts by Jitesh, minor profanity by Bhavin – responded in kind by the V3BDs and major cheering by the rest of the supporting team. The Bombay Boys team owner, Venu Nambiar (Siddharth Mallya), goes home a happy man today. Deepika Padukone was missed. 

Takeaways from the match:
1. Get the rules straight with the umpires and make sure people stick to it. If a bounce on a tree does not count to a catch, it should not count to a 6 either. Mutual understandings are fine, but we have been burnt by those 1-2 runs before.

2. Need to improve on catches. Captain needs to lead by example. Dropped catches wont work. We got by today but with a mighty opponent, it will prove to be very expensive.

3. All in all, we had 4 wickets due to runouts. Tolerable? Definitely not.

Bombay Boys now move on to face Churchill Cheetahs on May 15 2011 at 9:00AM at the same venue.
Scores as always have been uploaded on http://www.cricketmn.com

For a history on Bombay Boys: http://bombay-boys.blogspot.com

Cheers,
Deepa Duraisamy
One Team. One Dream.

Match 5 : Vs TroubleMakers : Ended in a Draw

Click on image(s) to view in detail.

Bombay Boys drew the match against TMK on Sunday 06/20, in what can be categorized as their first truly “exciting” match of the season, complete with a nail-biting finish. With a diversion from the usual trend, Bombay Boys lost the toss this time and acceded to bowl. The team was used to batting first and defending, chasing a set target would be a true challenge to gauge form. Bombay Boys was missing a couple of mainstream bowlers like Arun and Asif, as well as the only left-hand batsman of the team, Arvind. Ashish Prabhu (hereby referred to as AP2) and Nitesh made their season debuts with this match.

Nitin and Ketan started off their bowling spells with decent overs, keeping extras in control and bowling perfect line and length. TMK openers, in first 4 overs thus, were able to post only 15 runs. At a run rate of marginally less than 4 runs per over, the start looked decent enough. However, it seemed like a bad day for Chakra bowling the 5th over. With wides abundant and a huge 6 off the last ball of the over, the 5th over by itself added another 15 runs to the TMK scorecard. Ketan and Monty followed with their overs, somewhat stabilizing the batting outburst. TMK’s main striker Bharat, the guy to watch out for, was on a roll, with a 6 and some meaty 4s, playing strong when his wicket was beautifully taken by Monty, caught by Vikram. Bharat’s dismissal wasn’t taken too well by TMK, who appealed that Bharat was not out since it wasn’t a nick. Bharat for his part, stormed out of the field, pounding his bat against the terrain. BB was on a high, including Bhavin who was having a great time provoking TMK anyway. The very next wicket went in the 9th over, again taken by Monty, who seemed to be returning to his previous dependable form! Albeit having bowled slightly costly overs, the two important wickets were a huge moral boost. At the end of 10 overs, TMK stood at 64/2. Chakra resumed after halftime, this time with well controlled bowling, and amazingly, the remainder 3 overs of his only total up to 12 runs in all. AP2 also bowled some really good balls, 2 overs in all, giving only 11 runs, much to the relief of a lot of us, whose hearts were in our mouths. The real surprise package was Saurabh, who picked up 5 huge wickets in a single match, which has probably never before happened in the history of Bombay Boys. Saurabh also contributed in one of the two runouts, the other involving Vikram and Chakra. At the end of the innings, TMK stood at 111 having lost 9 wickets.

Nitesh and Ketan opened with Nitesh at the striker end. From the very start itself, both TMK and BB seemed charged. Low level swearing from the BB was met in turn by personal comments on the BB players that slowly escalated into a verbal dual. Both teams played with a vengeance. Nitesh got bowled in the 3rd over. In walked Saurabh and between the two and them, they scored some well-timed 4s and ran a good amount of singles/doubles. Saurabh, however, fell prey to a good ball from the TMK bowler Madhu (who had been ragged for quite a while, as he stood close to the BB team at the boundary line during his fielding stint). At the end of 10 overs, BB stood at 53/2. BB now needed 59 runs from the remaining 60 balls. Monty and KT as a duo, exhibited superior batting qualities during the second half, making every use of loose balls and running well-called singles/doubles. The partnership between the two had just set in, when Ketan got bowled again to Madhu. 80/3 in 15 overs. The “equation” now read – 32 runs required from 30 balls. Doable? Paras ensured that we stay in the game, by hitting 2 back-to-back 4s in the 15th over, which brought BB closer to achieving the target. BB needed 16 runs from 4 overs. Definitely doable. However, in the next couple of overs, Paras was not able to connect, causing concern among the BB squad, neither were the batsmen able to rotate the strike. With every missed ball, the target seemed to inch away from reach. Paras’s wicket then fell, as he got bowled to Shrikant in the 19th over. In walked the BB Shrikant and tried to revive the BB scoring. 7 balls 7. 6 balls 6. 5 balls 6. Nail-biting. 2 balls 3. The second last ball of the innings was hit by Monty and the batsmen succeeding in scoring a double and could have run back for the 3rd, but confusion reined as Monty thought it was a No-Ball, given by Satchit who was the leggie but over-ruled by the main umpire. The scores now stood at level. Unfortunately for BB, we were not able to convert the last ball to a run, resulting in a DRAW, which for TMK was a huge victory in itself.

4 runs, 2 from Paras and 2 from Monty were cancelled out by the umpire, claiming that the ball had not touched the bat. Should BB have appealed stronger? The no ball was a controversy. Would that have changed the face of the match? No offense to Shrikant, but Vikram was used to playing in nail-biting finishes like these, would he have been a better fit to the situation at hand? The umpire was supposed to have been from the SOC team, turns out he was from a different team, and surprisingly his name was not even in the roster. Should we have continued? There are innumerable questions that could have been raised, but at the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that the match ended in a draw. Could we have played better? Probably. Could we have done anything different? Probably. Did we miss out on our effort anywhere? NO. We’ll just do better next time.

Bombay Boys now proceeds to their next match against KnightRiderz on 06/26. Stay tuned.
PS : The questions/opinions raised are solely mine and do not reflect the thoughts of the BB team or any player.

Scores : http://www.cricketmn.com/

For further details on Bombay Boys : http://bombay-boys.blogspot.com/

Cheers,
Deepa Duraisamy
One Team. One Dream.

Addendum :
All,

I just wanted to clarify that the question about Shrikant was not raised to undermine his playing or doubt his capability. Being a mere spectator, its not my place to do so. He scored a good 3 runs off 3 balls faced making it a perfect 100% strike rate, however this was still a question that I had in mind which I felt I could voice. Hopefully my email did not touch any raw nerves.

Thanks,
Deepa.

Match 4 : Vs Indian Colts : Won by 21 Runs

Click on image(s) to view in detail.

The Bombay Boys winning streak continues with yet another victory, this time against the Indian Colts. As has become the norm, Bombay Boys won the toss this time too and elected to bat. A precursory review of the pitch came back negative for batting as the ball refused to bounce. Bombay Boys definitely couldn’t hope for many extras.

Venu replaced Arvind this match, opening at the non-striker end, aiding skipper Ketan at the striker end. Two consecutive 4s by KT in the very first over set the ball rolling for the Bombay Boys batting scorecard, also building up expectations of a huge target for the Indian colts. Venu got bowled to a good ball from Jatin of Indian Colts in the 5th over. Monty stepped in at the 1-down position and here began the solid 80-run partnership between the duo. KT and Monty continued to steadily garner runs, exhibiting a good running between the wickets, going for 4s and 6s on loose balls and overall, putting on a commendable show. High energy cereal bars and Gatorade from Costco kept them going, I have been told. Special thanks to Venu and Madhu, who were in charge of refreshments and to Arun/Paras who had introduced the bars the first time round. The duo stayed put way past halftime, right till the penultimate over, when both of them fell prey again to Jatin, KT's shot caught by Pawas and Monty for his part, caught and bowled by Jatin. KT finished his innings with a superb 53 off 57 balls, only the 2nd player in the history of Bombay Boys to hit a half century after Neeraj Sinha (Season 2006). Monty also finished with a 'Beautiful' (vocabulary credit - Jitesh) 42 off 44 balls, falling short of a half century by just 8 runs. Talking from a 4s and 6s point of view, KT had 5 neat 4s and 1 huge 6, Monty finished with 3 lovely 4s. The scoreboard at this point read 108. Srikant, Paras, Vikram and Saurabh finished off the last two overs with some quick running between the wickets taking the total score to 121, of which 13 were extras, setting a target of 122 to win.

The bowling innings started with Nitin and Asif, who made a comeback with this match this season. Indian Colts, even though having lost every match of this season that they played, refused to back down and took to aggressive playing right from the very first ball. Openers Harish and Pawas ensured that even if they end up losing this one as well, they will not do so without a fight. A steady contribution by both of them, led to a 67-run partnership, with 4s galore. The score at halftime read 50 with no loss of wickets. This was a dangerous situation to be in. Bombay Boys bowling innings missed the inherent aggression and superb mind sledging display of the previous match. To add to it, the previously unhelpful pitch seemed to have changed form as balls bounced off it in abundance, transforming into no-balls easily. As the BB skipper had mentioned during the initial preplay huddle, Bombay Boys had lost only 1 league match in the entire 2008 season, that was to Indian Colts. We sure as hell didn’t need a replay of that. But at this point, looking at the score and the attitude of the Indian Colts, the match could go either way. The only sliver of hope came in the 12th over when Pawas was caught by Asif amidst sharp intakes of breath by the onlookers, as the ball bounced off Asif's hands and he managed to take the bounced catch again while in the running mode. The very next wicket went in the same over by Srikhant, this one taken by the BB wicket-keeper Vikram in a similar enthralling fashion, followed by nonstop rooting and cheering. The 2 cut-to-cut wickets put some pressure on the Indian Colts and boosted the morale of the Bombay Boys who upped their aggression factor, having gone down due to dropped/missed catches by Satchit, Saurabh, Vikram, Monty that could have cost the team dearly. Comments coming from the direct source, Monty's bowling also needs work, pace adjustment and focus on line (length being perfect) required since wides were abundant. Other well taken catches by Vikram (who took a total of 4 catches this match), Saurabh, Ajay P (brilliant, well-timed catch, Chichi - under a lot of pressure to perform well in his 1st match this season) and Ketan ensured that history didn’t repeat itself in this case. Indian Colts ended their 20 over innings with a total of 100, of which 24 were extras. Translated to 4 complete overs. That is A LOT.

Bowling and fielding sections needs to step up. Bombay Boys now stands at 4/4, facing their next opponents in the form of TroubleMakers, who have been doing pretty good this season. Gear up people, the race has just begun to get interesting !

Scores : www.cricketmn.com
For further details on Bombay Boys, http://bombay-boys.blogspot.com

Cheers,
Deepa Duraisamy.
One Dream. One Team.