Hurricanes take a 4 point lead....

The past few days have been a bounty in terms of all the cricket we got to play. Despite the early week forecast of incessant rain, what we witnessed were the driest conditions in a few months which meant humidity, dust and lots of sun. 

Going into today's game, the season score was 9-7 in favour of the Hurricanes but there was really not much to differentiate the two teams with. Thursday and Saturday witnessed a split of two single point games which were fairly one sided for the winning teams. Today was a full 15 over regular game with both teams stacked with most of their regulars. 

Hurricanes asked the Wolves to bat first and while Ayush bowled a fairly tidy over it also went for boundaries. Vicky has been a revelation in his new role as opening ball bowler. While Vicky has always enjoyed bowling he always seems to be a reluctant bowler but over the past few matches, the responsibility assigned to him has made him step up. In his opening over he accounted for CP who practiced longer than his time in the middle but after 2 overs, the Wolves were coasting at 25 runs. 

However in his second over, things started happening. A close run out chance followed by HK dispatching a contentious full toss over the leg side fence meant that Vicky had opened the floodgates. And this where teams need to remember that cricket is a team sport. While stars can bail you out from the most precarious positions, it also need everyone on the team to be counted for. And that is exactly what the unassuming KG did. He rode on his luck early on but unfurled a slew of boundaries that made a mockery of the bowlers line and length. With useful contributions from Satya, Shiten and Pranav, the wolves ended up at 107 in 15 overs which was probably 20 more than they had anticipated after the wickets up front. 

The wolves bowlers all bowled well in tandem but were guilty of letting the game meander in between. 

Any score over 100 in the maidaan is a matter of putting your head down and playing smartly more than anything else. AK and a Dhruv in a hurry opened the batting, a new pairing that made batting look absolutely simple and effective. They took the score to 40 for no loss in 5 overs after which Bipin came in and did his thing. With around 55 runs to get and the scoring under control and no real demons around, the game was only going one way. 

Shiten who has not had the best time recently with his bowling started terrorising the batters with his Patrick Patterson lengths. He accounted for AK and soon had Bipin and Dhruv brilliantly stumped by Satya behind the wickets. Arjun joined Bipin and a few more boundaries added to the score when Arjun devised a new way to get out off a full toss that should have been deposited in the pool off some smart bowling by Pranav. Vikram was soon gone too and suddenly it looked like the Wolves were favorites. Kiran and Vicky did not trouble the scores too much and all of a sudden, the Hurricanes needed 43 to win off the last 5 overs. 

Aashish by his own standards has still been trying to find his feet and all the Hurricanes had were Kishore and Ayush as the last 2 wickets. If I were a betting man, I would pick Wolves at this stage since they had overs from all their main bowlers remaining. Aashish got into his hitting groove off an over from HK and the Hurricanes knew they were not out of the match just as yet. Satya bowled a brilliant 13th over and the ask was now a simple 28 runs off 2 overs. Aashish ensured he took most of the strike and the ask was now 17 runs of the final over. 

After two hours of arguments, name calling and finger flipping it all came down to Satya vs Aashish. At a time like that, you can get advice from every single person playing around you but all that advice comes down to nought because it finally is a battle of nerves. Here were two of the most experienced players in the park who knew each others games better than most. So who was going to choke first? 

Ball 1 : A nonchalant four over cow corner, almost long on....

Ball 2 : Game set and match. Smoked absolutely smoked for SIXXXXX

Now its down to 7 off 4 balls....

Ball 3: Dot 

Ball 4 : Aashish now seeing footballs sends another one screaming past the fence. 

1 needed of 2...No heroics needed. Hurricanes have a mid pitch conference, Wolves bring the fielders in and Ayush comes in to replace Kishore at the non strikers end. 

Ball 5: Aashish with the maturity of a wise old preacher, knocks it into the leg side and the easiest of runs is completed. 

Game...set...and match....Hurricanes....

Beautiful game that had all the elements that make cricket at maidaan so much fun...To more such battles. 

MoM : Team Hurricanes ....sorry scratch that ------AAAASHEEEEESH!!! 

Hurricanes lead 11-7 with all to play for....