Scorecard TITANS vs Tigers

Result: TITANS won by 112 runs

Cricket Pundits said before the game, that Tigers should be an easy game. But then they said the same thing for Spiders as well, so there was no reason to take the game less seriously. We had to win and thats exactly what we tried, but didnot know what the day had in-store for us.
TITANS won the toss for a change and elected to bat to start the proceedings.

TITANS batting
Kapil and Shilpan opened the batting and got into the act from the beginning. Tigers were not giving any extras but runs still keep coming at a brisk pace, due to intelligent running between the wickets. Kapil pulled one to the square leg boundary to bring the first 4 of the game. It was just matter of time when TITANS reached 50 in the 10th over. With a healthy run rate and both the openers in prime form, we knew that we are going to have a high scoring game. But Shilpan once again was unlucky to get himself run out. He scored 22. Vinay replaced Shilpan to exploit the good opening provided by the openers. He pulled one to the square leg boundary which bounced inches before the rope for a 4. But later he chose a wrong ball to hit over the long on but the fielder grabbed the catch. Gopi went in to solidify the middle order. He soon got out, popped the ball to mid wicket where Ravi took an one handed catch. Kapil was bowled soon after to a low ball, and a well deserved innings came to an end. He score 26, score 73-4. After that Abhay and Sandeep took the score to 100 hitting all the lose balls, even good one some times. Sandeep was unlucky not to get boundaries because of wet outfield. Sandeep nicked to the keeper when score read 100. Abhay was soon caught at square leg few runs later. Sunil and Abhilash ran the last ressurection act and took the score to 126 when Sunil was caught at mid off. Abhilash was comprehensively bowled on the next delivery. At that point it seemed that TITANS would reach a score of around 150 but the last two wickets could add just 1 more run and TITANS innings ended at 127 with 9 balls to spare, with Amit stranded at one end without playing a ball.
A good openning partnership, some good hitting in the middle, but overall the conditions were not exploited enough to reach a big score. Now it was the bowlers turn to fire. And they obliged.

Tigers batting

Amit opened the bowling for TITANS. Second ball of his over, the batsman stirred to the square leg only to find Sunil's safe hands. Two balls later Murli cut to the point where Gopi took the catch. And another two balls later, ball took the inner edge of the bat and shattered the furniture. Neither bowler not batsman had clue what happened. The first over costed Tiger's 3 wickets. But more was yet to come. Abhilash shared the new ball with Amit and made Anant go over the top on his third ball, where Abhay completed a neat catch at the long-on. Nobody could believe what was going on. Score was 2 runs for 4 wickets. KP and Sekhar then tried to keep wickets but Abhilash struck again when Kapil jumped and took a shocker at mid off. score 6/5. Amit bowled KP middle stump next over when score read 8. Abhilash produced two beautiful in swingers around the leg to remove two batsmen on consecutive deliveries. The last wicket, batsman had no clue what happened. Vinay changed ends with Amit and gave the decisive blows to get one caught by Gopi and another one by Abhilash. Tigers ended their inning at 15. An unbelievable bowling effort.
Though the Tigers lost the game, they won lot of hearts and respect from TITANS for the sportsmanship they showed. They are undoubtedly the most sporting team in this league, unlike the last team we played, who had no respect for the game.

Sporting moment of the match : The last ball of Vinay's over hit the top of the bat's handle and Abhilash took the catch, but umpire didnot notice it. At that moment, the Leg Umpire from the opposite team showed lot of sportsmanship and declared the batsman out.