Asteroids won the toss and elected to bat against UC Jaguars who are unbeaten so far.
Asteroids innings was kick started by two new openers in Bharth Ram making his debut for Sunnyvale and Raj Badoni.
Bharth ( 17 ) got asteroids off to the solid start by attacking the UC bowlers. He struck a monstrous six over mid wicket and just when he was looking set for a big one he got out to a peach of a out swinger. As soon as he got out runs started to dry up , Hari tried to up the scoring and lost his wicket. Asteroids were 45 for 2 at the end of 15 overs.
After the first drinks break, the plan was to consolidate and look at a target of 110 in 30 overs. But with wickets falling at quick intervals , Asteroids batsmen had to go into their shell for the second 15 overs. 4 wickets ( Rohan , Athul , Raj B and Mayank fell against the run of play. The bowling was not that special but the batsmen just found ways to get out. Asteroids went into the break at 96 / 6 in 30 overs.
So at the start of the 3rd session , plan was get at least 160 on board which would have been a fighting total. But Asteroids hit a road block again when a partnership was just building. Vishnu got bowled playing across the line and Arun D who had injured his back, got run out trying to run 2 runs from an over throw.
Asteroids were struggling at 111/8 in 36 overs. Akshay batted well with the tail and scored an aggressive 22 runs from 31 ball but runs did not come from the other end.
Only 35 runs were scored in the last 10 overs and Asteroids ended the innings at 134 for 9 in 45 overs.
With Arun D injured and unable to field , we had a new opening bowling combination in Vishnu and Mayank. The UC Jaguars openers went out attacking the bowlers from the first ball. Bowlers were unlucky as balls flew over slips or fell in no man land on more than few occasions. Spin was brought on first change and Athul picked up the first wicket with Onkar bowled for a rapid 29 runs in 28 balls. Mayank another debutant picked up the second wicket with Athul taking a good catch at mid on. Vishnu struck before the break to get the 3rd wicket. Jaguars went into the break at 61/3 in 15 overs.
AJ and Raj were the new batsmen and Asteroids needed to pick up the wicket of AJ early if they had any hope of winning the game. But again catches / stumping went down and AJ was off to a fast start. He was aided by easy full toss balls, which he made full use of f. Madhu another debutant bowled well , but was unlucky as chances went down of his bowling. He finally picked up AJ who was out for 48 with Athul again taking a good catch at Mid Off. UC Jaguars reached the target with 5 wickets in hand.
Special Thanks to Sathy for fielding in place of Arun D.
Negatives:
Batsmen getting out to average bowling.
No Partnerships.
Bowling lacked teeth. UC jags batsmen were rarely troubled.
Fielding and High Catching was U-10 stand.
Sunnyvale Cricket Club 