Win at home for 3's against Maritime

Report by Satyajit

Desperate for a win after the sound thrashing at Christleton last week, TCC 3rd team members enthusiastically crawled into the TCC grounds. All on time roughly 30 mins before the 1 clock start time. Satyajit being the last to arrive, given that he only lives a two minute walk away from the ground. Anyway….

The prematch catch / fielding practice session was abandoned after about 5 mins of random throwing of the ball, bowling practice etc.

A bombshell was dropped in team huddle with Vipul announcing he was stepping down as TCc3s captain; handing over the captaincy baton to Raghu Bhaskar going forward. A debate about whether Raghu’s Initiation as captain should be marked by handing him the captains’ cap or a kick in the backside ended eventually with a round of applause for both Raghu and Vipul instead.

Raghu won the toss and elected to bowl first. Prasath and Naseem took to the crease for Maritime. Pankaj opened the bowling and bowled Prasath out for a duck. Naseem was then joined by Amal Raj. Sanchit toiled at the other end without any success. Swaraj bowled next and had Amal Raj caught brilliantly by Vijay at Mid off for 21( Vipul even claimed that he saw Vijay’s feet off the ground when he took the catch( no one; not even Vijay believed Vipul and that was that) )

Swaraj bowled well had Sameer Khanna bowled for 0 and then Sukumar caught by Kiran for 3 with some fantastic swing bowling. Naseem batted fluently at the other end, despite surviving four close LBW appeals which were met with a “What’s LBW, by the way?” look from the umpire.

Murugesu was next to depart without troubling the scorers, out on a duck to a sharp catch by Satyajit at short cover ( almost silly point) off Raghu. Swaraj then took his fourth wicket, bowling out Usman B ending up with an impressive spell of 10 overs 4 wickets for 32 runs; Raghu bowled out Prabhudika and Gunaraj for 0 and 3 respectively next and ended up with figures of 10 overs 3 wickets for 52 runs. Ved bowled well without success though. Fielding standards dropped slightly with Swaraj dropping a simple catch at gully and Ved closely missing a run out.

Naseem remained unbeaten eventually with a superbly compiled 143 out of a total score of 185.

Lunch was consumed under typical English Summer weather conditions. Dull, dark rainy and grey.

Raja and Piyush opened the innings for TCC3.
Prabhudika and Sukumar opening the bowling for Maritime. Runs were scored fluently until Piyush was unfortunately run out for 23 (via a deflection off the foot of a fielder at mid wicket which went straight back to the bowler who ran Piyush out with a direct hit at the strikers’ end) Kiran joined Raja and was next to depart on 12 with the score at 54 for 2. Ved and Sanchit were in charge of scoring along with the rest of the team huddled up in the scoring box in very chilly weather conditions. Ved getting a earful of colorful Hindi language and lungs full of tobacco smoke as people desperately tried to keep warm in the score box.

Vipul then joined Raja who held fort at one end, Vipul batted like a man possessed thereafter , , hitting the ball hard and at will including a six that landed out of the ground right next to where his car was parked. He possibly hates his Nissan, but that’s a different story. Such was the ferocity of Vipul’s hitting that there were a couple of occasions where fielders actually moved out of the way fearing injury...

Vipul survived a dramatically enthusiastic LBW appeal when the ball hit Vipul’s bat and then his thigh. The game resumed after Piyush calmly explained what LBW meant to the bowler and normal proceedings resumed. The annihilation continued after a short interruption due to rain and Vipul and Raja finished the game unbeaten on 74 (53 balls) and 57 (67 balls) respectively in 28 overs.

Prabhudika was the only successful bowler for Maritime with figures of 9 overs 1 wicket for 32 runs.

Post match celebrations included drinks and the usual loud exchanges of team strategies, jibes at each other and strangely the introduction of the box of shame by Gary F to which Satyajit contributed some money just because…..

TCC 3s still remain in the relegation zone at the bottom of the league table requiring to potentially win the rest of the 13 matches to aim for the middle of the table.

TCC 3s play at Chester Boughton Hall next……