Monday Mistakes ...

What a way to finish the Round 2 of Open 2009

Congrats to all the teams who made their way to top 8 spots both in Elite and Royal.

Today's blog is for our team SE11. I really have to apologize and thanks each team member to back me up and help to come out of my frustration.

I know every one is really upset and felling down after yesterday's macth.

Here is my story how SE11 was out of the race because of me.

Error is to human, but how about the error which affects entire team. Everyone knew wining game against Yorkers was important and wining with bonus points was must.

So we had decided to be positive and win for qualifying to the top 8.

SE11 as a team we always play positive and sportive cricket come what may. Our passion, practice and craze for cricket has brought us on the top of the tables recently in really short time of TCA history.

After wining the toss we decided to field and restrict Yorkers below 60s or so. Bowling and fielding recently have added flavor to our team. We dropped few catches in begining and got unlucky by some odd bounce which cost us some extra runs. Guess what we restricted yorkers for 64 runs. They were all down in 19 overs.

Great bowling by Sridhar, who once again proved he is one of the Best bowler in both SE11 and TCA. Overall bowling from all the blowers and fielding was awesome.

Our target was not so big, we have batting talent which can easily case this target in given 20 overs. But it was matter of getting into spot 8. I did the calculation and came out with the numbers. Here is the climax of the story.

To get 2 bonus points we needed to chase the score in some 12 overs was our first target to avoid complicated run rate calculation. I decided to do overall run rate calculation and came out with the numbers. God knows how I got 13 which really turned out to be unlucky one. We started with non regular openers and lost couple of quick wickets. But soon we were right on the track. In 10 overs we were 48/5. So next target was 17 of 12 or 18 balls, with 5 wickets in hand. In 11th over we lost Rahul the man in form and so we decided to go for 13 overs to chase the target. But fortune did not supported us and we lost Parthan got stumped out to get the target in 12 overs and we were left with me and Sridhar on the crease 14 of 12 balls. 12th over we lost Sridhar bowled due to an odd bounce but got 7 runs of the over. Now me and Manny at the crease 7 runs 6 balls. 1st ball single by Manny, 2nd ball we ran 2 right in fielders hand, 3rd ball was the ball which I doubt I will forget in my life time. I tried to be innovative and hit up in the air and was caught, poor shot selection and really irresponsible one can play in given situation. 4th ball was the dot ball so pressure was on the batsman at the crease. 5th ball was single. Last ball 3 runs needed. Ketan bhai could not connect the ball and we just gave up and Manny was run out.

There was no regreets of the loss because we went for win in given limited overs of target as per my calculation.

Guess what It was not my day. After match Amol and I did the calculations again and we were shocked to see the new number. It was some 14.4 overs. I was already no able to digest the loss due to my bad shot selection, now my miss calculation of run rate added more frustration to my mind and I am not able to come out of it till now.

I taught this blog will help me to plead sorry to my team members who did their best this season and proved to TCA teams that do not take us for granted any more we are one of the toughest team to be beaten. There are no regrets for the loss. Losses are part of the game.

This season has given us lot of learnings. Main points to noted are Practice makes Man perfect, Stick to the basics, Keep the things simple, Play with mind and not with heart, Play cricket and do not focus on the useless unwanted disturbance outside the game and last but not the least get your maths correct :)

Hope this blog will help each and everyone in coming future and avoid unnecessary frustration to your head.

I thanks my team to be nice and supportive. I think I lost the match and day for them but gain their true friendship and companionship today.

Go SE11 Go ... I am proud to be part of SE11