Scorecard TITANS vs Brownstown

Result: TITANS won by 1 wicket

What would you call a perfect match? Good bowling performance? Good Batting? Astonishing catches? Excellent fielding? And all other masala as well, like dropped catches, missed runouts, middle order collapse, hat trick and the closest possible game. Don't think it happened in one game? Think again. It all happened in the first game of the league against Brownstown. A zealous Pakistani team and a long drive to the game. They were supposedly the favorites. I guess that pumped us up even more, if we could beat the best, there is no stopping from there.

Brownstown innings:
Brownstown won the toss and elected to bat. Zia and Umar almost gave a dream start to their team and were 14/0 end of two overs. 3rd over of the game, Zia hit one towards mid off straight to Vijay. The runner kicked off for a quick single, but couldn't beat Vijay's throw, where Satheesh dislodged the bails. Umar from the other end was trying to hit everything over the Square leg boundary. Mohan dropped a skyer in Vinay's second over but Vinay in his 3rd over used that agression against him and Umar falling in trap lofted the ball again to Mohan, who made no mistake this time. Satheesh would want to forget the 4th over he bowled and gave 6 wides. He really needs to work on wides (I mean not bowling wides). Abhay replaced Satheesh. Najim lofted an overpitched ball to long leg boundary and the ball landed few steps behind Vinay. Could have been a catch if Vinay had taken a start backwards. Vinay dropped another skyer in Abhay's next over, pure misjudgement. Ramana on the other end was bowling descent line and length and soon made the batsman to lose patience when he glanced the ball to square leg and ran for a quick single. Sunil's excellent stop changed the mind of the running end, and Abhilash neatly removed the bails before batsman could return back to the crease. Soon after Vijay got rid of Nazim who started looking dangerous, caught by Samar at mid on. Vijay induced another edge from Kaji and Abhilash did the needful to bring the 5th wicket down. Vinay was brought back to attack and in his last over good fielding placement earned him two more wickets, Javed caught at square leg boundary by Mohan and Rehan, the capatin, caught by Satheesh at point, without opening the account. With seven wickets down Brownstown was clearly in trouble and Ramana added to their agony when Tariq gave away his wicket caught at long leg by Abhay. A well judged catch. Ramana struck again in his next over when Vinay took a low catch in mid wicket region. With one more wicket to go Brownstown didn't seem to reach even 70, But Imtiaz used his expreience and played couple of good shots to take the score till 78. Ramana wrapped up the innings yorking the tailender Fahad.

TITANS innings:
79 required in 25 overs. From there only irresponsible play could make TITANS lose. And you guessed it right, TITANS came pretty close in doing that. It didn't turn out to be as smooth a ride as expected. Kapil and Vinay opened for TITANS. They scored 8 runs in the first over, which was a good start from every aspect. The next over was a surprise, Fahad who while batting looked like a filler in the team, turned out to be Rawalpindi express. The first ball a bouncer to Kapil and he ducked. Next two balls, sheer pace just wizzed passed Kapil. Next ball he was bowled yorked. Neeraj saw off the next two balls of that over. Next over Imtiaz trapped Neeraj in front of the wicket who was playing way forward. Umpire thought otherwise and Neeraj was back in the pavilion, Sunil came in and saw off the rest of the over. Next over Fahad bowled another rising delivery which Vinay tried to cut over the slips but the ball kept rising after hitting the bat and Nazir took an easy catch. TITANS managed to reach from 0/10 in 1.2 overs to 3/12 in 3.1. Ghosts of last season were clearly visible there. But Abhay decided to shed off those ghosts and got into a partnership of 24 runs with Sunil. Elegant strokeplay and defence was flavor of the game from there. Sunil played a vital role in keeping his wicket while Abhay scored briskly at the asking run rate. Sunil lost patience first and hit the first ball from Kaji to Long Leg, where Tariq took a one handed catch. Score 4/36. Samar walked in and Abhay was involved in another partenership of 24 runs with him. Scored read 4/60 when Samar was bowled by Imtiaz. Mohan and Abhay added 8 more runs and Abhay was given LBW to Javed, 6/68. He scored match saving 26 of 65 balls. Just 11 runs to win and 4 wickets in hand it all seemed easy. Mohan and Ramana stuck around for 2 more overs until 7 runs were required off 2 overs with 4 wickets in hand. Javed's last over took the initiative away from TITANS. He took a hat-trick; bowled Ramana, wide, Yasir took diving catch to remove Vijay, Abhilash LBW.
TITANS were reduced to 9/73. Still 6 required. Javed bowled another wide and TITANS needed 5 more runs off 6 balls. Mohan took a single of first ball, and cramped his thigh. Kapil went in as his runner. Unexpectedly, Satheesh hit a descent straight drive for two runs. Took a single on next ball, to equal the scores, almost survived a runout. That was a Nail-bitting moment. Mohan glanced the next one to fine leg. Kapil set off for run, Satheesh denied, Kapil came back, Sateesh set off for run, Kapil denied, Satheesh didn't listen, Kapil ran and reached the crease safely. All this time the fielder was not able to decide which end to hit and a split second delay romped TITANS home.

A victory at last, not a satisfactory one, but still a good begining of the series. Abhay came back to form with a bang. Ramana was find of the match 3.4-1-5-3. Rest of the bowlers sticking to the task. Good work by Mohan holding his nerve till the end. High end fielding except few catches dropped. And no runouts. Most importantly, not losing hope until the last bowl is bowled. This desire to win is something new to TITANS, and will take us a long way.
Some lessons learned, Satheesh need to improve on wides. Out of 17 extras we gave 10 wides were bowled by him. Scoring 78 runs almost became difficult. Any score below 80 should be achievable in 20 overs. We need to work on our runrate. But Victory is victory and it will be cherished for long. Good work guys.
Special thanks to Bijaya Dikshit. Having a 12th man took off the scoring tension from us. Also thanks to Satheesh for his photography skills.

Turning Point of the match : "2nd ball of last over Satheesh hit the ball straight over the bowlers head for 2 runs, which turned the game in TITANS favor."