HICC II defeat BICC II by 10 wickets
BICC II 181/10 in 37.3 overs
HICC II 183/0 in 29.4 overs
After winning the toss, HICC II, collectively decided to field first. It did raised a few eyebrows but it turned out to be a winning decision at the end of the game as HICC II convincingly defeated BICC II by 10 wickets scoring 182 required, well inside 30 overs. Shirish Patel and Vasant Patel were the chief architects of run scoring. Both were not out, scoring 117* and 38*, respectively.
HICC II started the proceedings with 9 players on the field as Shirish Patel (Bhavesh forgot to wake him up) and Sunil Patel (went to a wrong ground-age factor) were missing on the field. As expected, the team struggled a bit before both of them arrived on the field. Ashish Tripathi and Dharmesh Patel did a fine job in handling the mantle of bowling with the new ball in a heavy wind. Kirti and Vimal gave a good start to BICC II scoring around 5 runs an over. HICC II needed a wicket and the first one came just before the first break in a form of a run out! Forum fielded and threw a ball to Bhavesh in one go, and Vimal was found short of his crease. BICC II 62/1.
After the break, HICC II continued with their spin attack of Alpesh and Vasant Patel. Both bowled well to restrict BICC II and took 4 wickets among them. Alpesh Patel 8-2-20-1 & Vasant Patel 8-0-45-3. Later, Shirish Patel chipped in with 2 wickets in his 7 overs giving away 25 odd runs. Ashish and Sunil got one wicket each. BICC II was all out for 181 in 37.3 overs.
After Pizza for lunch, Shirish and Vasant were ready to take the field and begin the run chase. While they were batting as usual, captain (Bhavesh Patel) was bombarded with ideas and suggestions about keeping discipline in the team in respect to players showing up late on the game day. One obvious candidate was batting during this discussion while the other was patiently scoring (Sunil Patel). Sunil was forgiven early in the discussion as this was his first offense and also that he was jetlagged-flying from Italy just for the game!
Discussion went on and ideas such as buying an alarm clock, dropping him for a game or two, “Garage” not providing the “service” after 6 PM-allowing Shirish to sleep well and wake up naturally on the game day were circulated. As discussion was heating up, for some ironic reasons, Shirish was also heating up! We realized that he had reached his 50 and that we were well ahead in our scoring rate. Then came a break (15 overs), HICC II was 75 for no loss!
Both the batsmen had a breather and we all shifted our discussion to game plan. Both were given instructions to stay there and finish the game. After the break, we were all enjoying the stroke play displayed by both the batsmen, particularly by Vasant Patel. Shirish sweep slogged a six and then was bothered by his knee. Ashish Tripathi went in as a runner and Digesh Patel went in as a leg umpire. As Shirish got a fresh pair of legs, he kept on playing his strokes from one end. On the other end, Vasant was batting patiently and rotating the strike with occasional hit to the fence. As runs kept on coming with ease, we started thinking that we could actually win this game with no loss and Shirish and Vasant can get 100 and 50 respectively. Shirish celebrated his first century of the season with a fine cover drive to the fence in 27th over. Soon after he hit a couple of huge sixes and one last hit to the fence to win the game without loss. HICC II won the game by 10 wickets in 29.4 overs. The entire team was overjoyed with their performance and praises started coming thick and fast for everyone. The disciplinary meeting was finally adjourned and Shirish was hugged and praised by one and all.
Congratulations to the team for this victory. Congratulations to Shirish and Vasant for their great knocks.
Until next time,
Bhavesh