Report by: Arun Agarwal
Result: UC Warriors win by 7 wickets
Match Summary:
Sunnyvale Blazers won the toss and elected to bat
Innings 1 Sunnyvale: 129/10 in 46.1 (Kedar 30, Arun A 24, Rohan and Natty 13 each; AV 4 wickets, S Varma 2 wickets)
Innings 2 Warriors: 130/3 in 35.2 (K Keerthi 49*, S Mohan 38, Kiran 2 wickets, Sparshith 1 wicket)
MOM: K Keerthi for his 49* while chasing
MVP: AV for is 4 wicket 9 overs 32 runs
1st Session: Day started early for blazers when all 11 players were on time at Ortega at 845 am. It helps immensely to start the day with this kind of team commitment and comradery. Field was set by 9, and the next 45 minutes were spent on warm up and some drills. We won the toss and chose to bat on a great pitch, decent outfield and a new kook! Jimmy and Natty started the innings with style and caution, however things got out of had pretty quickly. 6over saw Natty turn his back after being trapped in deep cover to a crisp drive. That set the tune for the rest of the day, with 7out of 10 blazers bats getting caught. We got to 27 for 4 in 8overs and 45 for 6 in 20 overs, with Anoop getting a bad inner edge LBW decision and the rest of players playing loose shorts after cornering themselves by not rotating strike. Kedar and Arun had a 19 overs partnership which was slow in terms of runs (56) to try and repair the damage. By the time they tried to accelerate, they played loose shorts and got caught. Rest of the team got wrapped up in 46 overs. Sathy showed some aggression and Rohan played with intent, getting out to a sharp run out. Warriors bowled very tight line giving only 4 wides, and a total of 7 extras! Sharp fielding and only 2 dropped catches.
2nd Session: Blazers started their bowling with the usual formula, seam attack from inverness end and spin attack from school end, hoping to get early wickets. Warriors started with caution, barely playing shorts, not that they needed to with a RRR of 2.6. We were successful in breaking their opening partnership in the 8th over, when Kiran got Navin caught in mid wicket. Ajay also got out soon after, LBW to Kiran. However, Shrinee and K Keerthi kept batting with simple approach, take singles, rotate strike, no risk and hit a couple of bad balls for boundaries. In the end, we could only take 3 of their wickets. Warriors chased down the total in 36 overs, with the loss of 3 wickets. Really good composed innings by Keerthi and Shrinee. Sparry and Kiran were the pick of the bowlers.
Positives: Good partnership between KD and Arun. Positive batting by Sathy and Rohan. Putting a fight to defend a low total, good fielding overall, with no dropped catches, a heroic effort by Rohan to almost make an impossible catch in covers
Areas of improvement: Batting better, more partnership, rotating strike, valuing wickets, bat freely, wides (we gave 11), better energy and intent
Sunnyvale Cricket Club 