Cubs defeat Ismalia despite allround effort by Jay Desai

Cubs defeat Ismalia despite allround effort by Jay Desai

Cubs won the toss and decided to bat first on a nice and sunny day (a good change from the previous games which were curtailed due to rain).
However, they found themselves in a spot of bother from the get go. Upender falling for nought, Anoop unlucky to be given caught down the leg side of the pads for 6, and Cubs were 11 for 2, both becoming the victims of Jay Desai. Sunil and Vivek tried to establish a partnership, but Sunil soon fell caught behind of Jai again for 7. Cubs were 30 for 3. Sai and Vivek then stitched together a much needed 45 run partnership before Vivek was caught brilliantly by Jay Desai, who virtually plucked the ball off the ground pf the bowling of Hrishikesh for 29. Hrishikesh bowled an excellent line right through. Sai was then joined by Goutham. The two managed a 30+ partnership and just when it looked ominous, Sai fell for 29 to Jay Desai who was enjoying it out there this morning. Mixing his yorkers, with slower ones, he seemed to be hitting the right notes today.
Goutham was then joined by Sanjay and the two managed to stick it out till the break, but right after, Goutham played on..getting an inner edge to some vintage swing bowling from Aziz. Aziz struck in the same over again, getting Sanjay caught and bowled and suddenly, not only was Cubs
in danger of a low score, but the chief wrecker was turning out to be Aziz !!!. Srini and I then put together a 30 run partnership before I fell caught behind off Shashank. We were at 162 for 8, but Srini was in no mood to give in. He continued his battle, willing to throw his bat at anything that was within range. Together with Vinay, they managed a 29 run 9th wicket partnership that couldn't have come at a better time. Cubs were wrapped up for 192 in the 44.4 over with Jay Desai easily earning the bowling honors with a brilliant 6/34. He was ably supported by Aziz 2/27 (yes the man was swinging the ball). Srini was rewarded for his grittiness with a well compiled 40.

Having managed a respectable 192 (under the circumstances), it was left to the Cubs bowlers to now back up decent score posted. Ismalia never looked in control of the game. Srini struck early removing Aziz for close to nothing. Goutham quickly struck getting Ramamurthy for 0 and followed it with another LBW. Kamran Lakhani trying to take on Vinay only got as far as finding Srini at Mid On. Srini thru' his outswingers seemed to trouble Raghu and soon enough had him hit uppishly at cover point for Sunil, to his surprise..and those of others Smile to pluck the ball from thin air. The score card pretty much read 29 for 5, with atleast half of those runs generously donated by the errant Cubs bowlers who bowled one too many wides today. Shashank was trapped in front shuffling to a Goutham inswinger and the score was about 40 odd for 6. Tanveer Bhimani and Jay Desai then managed to get a partnership going, but Tanveer soon fell caught and bowled by me for 12. Jay Desai was holding on to his end, looking for a partner to support him in the run chase. Hrishikesh was the partner he was looking for. Together, they tried to steady the innings, trying to keep the run rate within reach. Jay Desai was especially brutal in one over of Vivek. There was a small cloud of worry for Cubs as long as these two were at the crease. While the total looked imposing, the rate was always within 6-7 runs and in this game anything can happen. Today however, Cubs found their guy in Reddy, who bowled an immaculate line and length which virtually throttled the run chase for Ismalia. He was extremely difficult to read and work around for runs. The brakes were applied by the two spinners (Reddy and me). The pressure got to Jay Desai, who then in an effort to increase the pace gave a high catch to Vivek who judged it cleanly. Jay Desai got 31 for his efforts and was the top scorer for Ismalia. With Jai gone, the writing was on the wall for Ismalia. While Adib and Hrishikesh managed to stretch things out, it was clear that the target was just to high for them to conquer. Adib fell, caught at mid wicket of my bowling and 2 balls later it was all over for Ismalia, 138 all out.
Cubs finally posted an impressive 54 run victory, though the margin could have been much more had they not bowled as many wides as they did today (about 30+).

For Ismalia, the top scorers were Jay Desai 31 Hrishikesh Singhania 25*.
The chief wicket takers were Goutham Morab 3/18, Arjun Rajagopalan 3/23, Srinivasan Guntupalli 2/27. Reddy was impressive with a nice spell of 8-2-23-1 and Vinay chipped in with 1/25.