Dhruv pens his thoughts

 An early summer unofficial 

(inspired by true events, some facts may have been altered for dramatic purposes)

After a high scoring thriller the previous day, the maidaan needed a breather. However no match at the maidaan is really low intensity and we witnessed another fun game with both teams fighting for the win

Teams- 

Shitendra, Arjun (said he wouldn't bowl), Pranav, Ayush, Kiran, CP, Vicky (c)

Samir, Sathya, Sumit, Ishaan, Piyush, Vikram, Manoj, Dhruv (c)

Vicky won the toss and chose to bat first.

1st Innings- 

Vikram, Dhruv and Piyush  were miserly in the first six overs with Kiran, CP, Vicky getting out early. 26 runs in six overs and we seemed to be headed for a drab day at the maidaan. Pranav meanwhile held the innings at one end with sensible batting and took a lot of singles to keep the scoreboard ticking.

In came Arjun to join Pranav and with only Shitendra in the wings it was the perfect time to close the innings under 50. Arjun, however, had other plans. Even though he started with two typical lazy shots and refused to run for obvious singles, an eventual four finally got him going. 

The next three overs were calculated shots,  excellent running and some wayward balling before Pranav miscued one trying to hit a four.

Special mention -Sathya bowling a six run over with no runs of the bat and Arjun throwing in a mini strike that why is Sathya bowling so many wides.

In came Shitendra at 48 runs with about three overs to go. This is where the senior pros stepped up their game and took 18 runs of the next two overs with both Dhruv and Vikram leaking runs. Sathya wrapped up the innings with an excellent last over (and Arjun finally got a run of Sathya with the bat). 

Target- 71 runs in 12 overs

Special mention- Shitendra almost did a perfect split trying to hit one out of the ground. Fortunately, no long term damage to either Shitendra or the maidaan.

The second innings started with Manoj and Piyush opening the batting and getting their team off to an excellent start with regular boundaries, good running and a lot of wides (some of which were hotly contested). The game seemed to be getting one sided, however Manoj eventually got caught at the boundary and next over Vikram got out, miscuing a juicy full toss of Pranav outside the maidaan. With a lot of batting still left, the chase was well under control at 31 runs in 6 overs with 40 needed off 42 balls.

However, the duo of Shitendra and Arjun came in and turned the screws with their bowling. No batsman got going after this, and even though the run rate was well under control, wickets kept falling regularly. Even Kishore's heroic late entry couldn't save the day with the innings eventually folding for 61 runs with 7 balls to spare.

Special mentions-

Shitendra's beautiful loopy off cutter got Sathya miscuing a shot outside off.

Arjun getting Samir and Dhruv out in the same over with 2 leg cutters

CP's keeping was a revelation (though not at Hari's level yet, he can definitely replace Samir for the Infernos)

MoM- Arjun (who wasn't supposed to bowl)

P.S- Sorry if I missed any contributions/moments