Match Report: FUCC vs CCCC, Semi-Finals T20 @Weston-Park

Post date: May 04, 2017 5:20:44 PM

Match: FUCC vs CCCC, Semi-Finals T20 @Weston-Park

Saturday, April 22nd, 2017

First Innings

After comfortably beating KCCC in the QF FUCC was up for a bigger challenge against CCCC in a much awaited semi-finals game. CCCC were all pumped-up and eager to take revenge after their loss against us in the league stages. All measures were taken to start the game early as there was thunderstorm predictions later in the afternoon, which by the way turned out to be incorrect. FUCC won the toss and decided to bat first, the field was a bit wet but dried-out quickly as it was bright and sunny. The opening duo Raj and Gaurav started the innings for FUCC but unlike the previous games they could not get to a flying start this time. CCCC bowled very tight initially, especially Nitish who got both Gaurav and Kishan out for consecutive delivery when FUCC’s score was 10/2. Rahul joined Raj and they both consolidated and stabilized the innings. Their partnership of 57 runs was broken when Rahul was runout. Yash and Raj continued the momentum before yash got out to a good catch at the mid-wicket boundary. Sunil provided the much needed acceleration in the death overs and on the other end Raj reached his 50 and continued to maul the CCCC bowlers. FUCC pulled a great finish by scoring 64 runs in last 5 overs, from 98/4 in 15 overs to 162/6 in 20 overs. Kudos to some great hitting by Raj, Sunil and Navanith. Raj ended up with yet another brilliant innings of 86(60) truly has been the backbone of our batting for this T20 tournament.

Second Innings

Shiv got rid of Sarthak in the very first over and gave a perfect start that FUCC really needed while defending 162 against a good batting side. He almost got another wicket of their key batsman Steve but unfortunately Raj could not hold on to a tough catch behind the stumps. Khan on the other end contained them by bowling with some serious pace. Pressure was building on the CCCC batsmen but Steve and Nitish slowly steadied the ship. FUCC got the much needed breakthrough in the 7th over when Harrish got Nitish caught behind. Kudos to Nitish for his sportsmanship as he walked after the faint edge even though umpires could not hear it. Vikas and Steve capitalized on the bad balls and slowly gained back the momentum for CCCC at 76/2 in 10 overs.  Khan was reintroduced into the attack in the 11th over to regain some momentum and he bowled a maiden over putting the pressure right back on their batsman which resulted in a wicket next over when Harrish got Steve stumped. Vikas Singh initially survived some dropped catches but continued to score boundaries and was finally dismissed in the 15th over by Vinod to a smart catch by Raj behind the stumps. CCCC needed 64 runs in the last 6 overs when Karthik came to bat and he looked dangerous right away. Karthik consistently scored big boundaries every over and got them close to the target. 22 needed of the last two over and Raj was given the ball. Karthik managed to hit a four and a six of the first two deliveries. At this point the body language dropped and when most of us thought it was game over, Karthik got out of the third delivery to a super catch in the deep covers by our captain Navanith and we still remember him shouting as hell “COME ON!! game abhi khatam nahi hua” and he was damn right. It was indeed an important wicket and that changed the course of the game. CCCC managed to score 14 runs of the 19th over and needed only 8 runs of the last over. After a long discussion ball was handed to Vinod, he bowled with great accuracy right in the block hole, conceded only 5 runs of the five deliveries. CCCC needed 3 to win and 2 to draw of the last ball when vinod bowled another yorker that went straight to Harish in the inner circle, both batsman attempted the second run but were runout by long way and FUCC won by just one run. The entire team was relieved after the victory, this will be an unforgettable last over and will cherish this moment for a very long time.

MOM: Raj Thakur for his brilliant 86 runs, 2 wickets, three catches and 1 stumping. 

GO FUCC!!

Rahul