SPCC v PACC, Pre-Season Game 3, Reedy Creek Park

Baseer shine in a low scoring encounter

Deepak Bhat and Anish Raghavan

March 23rd, 2008

SPCC 147 for 8 (Baseer 57*, Mani 30, Trilok 23,Rajesh-15, Haroon 4-17,Mustaq 2-17,Junaid 2-19) beat PACC 144 (Murtaza 48, Tarun 2-9, Katik 2-8, Sandeep 2-11, Kalyan 2-26) by two wickets

A masterpiece innings from SPCC skipper Baseer was the highlight as SPCC secured a victory over PACC in Reedy Creek. He was the Player of the Match for his invaluable 57* and for three smart catches taken by him earlier in PACC innings.

It was perfect day for cricket. Match started a little late at around 11.00 pm. PACC win the toss and elected to bat. Tarun and Kalyan started the inning this time. They bowled with a very descent line and length. Deepak dropped a catch of bowling of Kalyan. This was one of the five catches that were dropped by SPCC fielders in the field. However Tarun soon got us our first break through where a catch was held by baser at first slip. Baseer had tremendous day with fielding in which he took three very good catches. At the end of 10 overs PACC was four down.

Soon Deepak made up for his mistake when he caught a blinding catch. The good thing was the first 10 overs yielded about 45 runs which is a very good thing on the Reedy Creek ground. Deepak and Praveen were introduced as the first changes. Deepak kept thing tight from one end.

After drinks break spinners took over. Subashish and Trilok bowled beautifully. There were chance offered but many catches were dropped. This is one area where SPCC has to still improve. After the spinners Sandeep and Kartik were introduced into attack. They also bowled beautifully. Sandeep soon got a wicket in his second over. A brilliant run out by Mani soon reduced PACC to 8 wickets.

Rajesh was introduced in the 29th over. He went for some runs initially in the first two balls but then the third ball he bowled was a beauty and the batsman was caught plumb LBW. Rajesh finished his over in which there was one more appeal for lbw which did not yield any result. Soon Kartik came to bowl the last over and on his second ball got a snick from batsman which was held beautifully by Abhijit. Abhijit deserves a special mention for the way he kept behind the stumps. He was instrumental in 2 dismissals. Hence PACC ended their innings at 144 all out in 29.2 overs. This is the third time in 3 practice matches that SPCC has taken all of the wickets of the opposition.

SPCC opened their innings with Swapan and Sumit. SPCC lost 3 quick wickets as Swapan, Anish and Tarun became victims of some fine bowling from PACC quickies. Mani came in to steady the ship and found an ideal partner in Sumit. Mani was in fine nick and he played some awesome shots. Unfortunately he lost his wicket, quite against the run of play, when he defended a slow ball and given a simple return catch. Soon Sumit also lost his wicket.

Baseer joined Trilok in the middle and they had a good partnership going. Trilok made quick 30 before he got out. He had 2 sixes and 2 fours. Rajesh came in and played another cameo innings with some eye catching hits over and to the boundary. Rajesh was out when another 40 runs needs to be made. It was left to Baseer to take the team to victory. With company of Tushar and Sandeep, Baseer was busy in taking some fine singles and timely hits to the boundary. After completing his well deserved half century, Baseer finished the match in style with another glorious boundary. It was a treat to watch his innings and an example to emulate.