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FINALS:--- Keyur's v/s Swadesh's

Keyur's side win comprehensively.

Led brilliantly with the bat and ball by captain Keyur all players chipped in with vital runs to push the score to 131 while batting first. Under pressure for the first time in the tournament Swadesh's side underperformed with the bat. A brilliant victory for Team 2. It has been a roller coaster dream for them... More to follow.

Day 2 updates-II..

Keyur's v/s Chandu's

Match result :

Game-6:--- Keyur's team beats Chandu's team with 31 balls to spare.

Chandu's side is the best bowling unit in this tournament and they are up against the second strongest batting line-up of Keyur's side. The only worry for Chandu's side is their batting, with Chandu not contributing as much as he has previously and with Ajit bordering on in-consistency their batting is fragile. Chandu's side won the toss and decided to bat first and everything that could go wrong went wrong. With just 30-35 runs on the board both Chandu and Ajit were back in the pavilion. Sandeep tried his best but did just enough to save them a few blushes. They scored just 56 in 10 overs. The lowest total of the tournament. Well bowled Keyur and teammates. But  the match was far from over.

                    It boiled down to run rate and the scenes all around field house were that of anxiety and confusion. Manzeer was working furiously on his laptop and the rest of the players mobbed him. If they all hated maths all their life it was not evident here as they all lapped every bit of numbers that Manzeer mumbled. The magic numbers required by Keyur's side were 57 in 5 overs.

                   Can they do it against the fast and furious duo of Sandeep and Chandu? Just to remind you earlier these same bowlers had turned the tables on Jayashankar's side while defending 70 odd runs in an previous match, but that was 10 overs, this is 5. Do they have enough steam left? Will Keyur and Varma show us some black magic? Magic, it was, as Keyur turned into a necromancer and did some vodoo on the opening bowler Chandu as he clubbed him for 4 sixes in the very first over. The match was effectively sealed, but not before Sandeep showed everyone why he is the most feared bowler at Utah state university as he took out both Keyur and Varma (or Aditya(bad memory!!)), but it was too little too late for them. With just 10 required of the last over Chandu faltered again and then bowled 4 continuous wides to hand Keyur's side an emphatic victory. A victory to cherish not just because now they had qualified for the finals, but also because they had been pushed to the wall and they had to come up with something special to stop the rut they had put themselves in. A special victory for a special team. Keyur shone the brightest but the victory was set up some accurate bowling first up by all bowlers including Aditya,shanti,Varma and Keyur himself.
                  The net run rate chart below shows how close keyur's and Jaya's side were.

Formula used:  ((No. of runs scored/No.of balls faced) - (No. of runs given/No. of balls bowled))

Team 1: ((69+72+55/60+48+60) - (137+61+56/60+48+29)) = -0.6874 (Chandu)

Team 2: ((126+83+56/60+60+29) - (131+142+55/60+60+60)) = -0.0437 (Miscalculated the score as 142)
            ((126+83+56/60+60+29) - (131+137+55/60+60+60)) = -0.0159 (Keyur)

Team 3: ((131+61+99/60+48+60) - (126+72+100/60+48+58)) = -0.0630 (Jayashankar)

Team 4: ((137+137+100/60+60+58) - (83+69+99/60+60+60)) = +0.7067(Swadesh)

                             Team 2 sneaked ahead with the skin of their teeth with the difference in run rate between theirs and Jaya's being in 2nd decimal places. They now face the all conquering juggernaut of Swadesh's side. They have the momentum with them and this win gives them the right shot of adrenalin to probably put up a good fight. The grand finale should be interesting, it will be match between high spirits of one team and the tremendous consistency of the other.

Day 2 updates-I..

Two games were played yesterday. Remember Swadesh's side has to beat Jayashankar's side and Keyur's side has to beat Chandu's for this to be a three way tie between the rest three teams.

The result of the first match is:

Game-5:--- Swadesh's team beats Jaya's team by 1 runs.

The first game started at 12:30 p.m, winning the toss Swadesh's side with two comprehensive victories in the last two games decided to do things differently by bowling first. Jaya's team has lots of big hitters but can they cope with the accurate bowling attack of Swadesh's side was the question on everyone's mind. As always Digant the aggressive left-hander opened the batting, but played sensibly curbing his natural aggressive instincts. Manzeer took charge of the bowling attack for Swadesh and countered the big hitters Jayshankar, Shashank and Sushant with some crafty leg spin. Big hitters like the ball coming on to their bats, which is what they were not offered by Swadesh's side. Swadesh and Vaibhav were as accurate as ever and Nagy's intelligent bowling helped restrict the batting side to 99 runs in 10 overs.

                                        Already in the finals, Swadesh's side tried to test their batting by allowing Porter and Vaibhav to open the innings. Porter played cricket for the first time in this tournament but had been shielded in the earlier matches. Vaibhav too was opening the batting after a long time. With Jaya's attack bowling quick the going was tough. Vaibhav was asked to retire after 2 overs and the in-form Tarun immediately showed the reason why he was so highly rated. Porter got out the next over and then Nagy, the bedrock of team 4's batting joined Tarun. Runs came thick and fast even though the run rate had climbed to 15 an over. Then against the run of play Tarun got out. Swadesh joined Nagy and more sensible hitting followed. Jayashankar tried all his options, but was just not able to control the runs flow defending a smallish target. Poorna, the unorthodox off-spinner created some trouble with his turn and bounce but once his three overs were safely negated it was a matter of hitting the bad balls. Nagy got out with just 15-20 required of 2 overs, which Manzeer and Swadesh were able to get with one ball to go.

                         Close game and the result certainly opened the tournament up as all the other three teams had the opportunity to qualify. This close game did not hurt Jayashankar's run rate and was the team with the best run rate amongst the three sides. Chandu's side just had to win the next game to qualify for the finals. Keyur's side had the toughest task as they not only had to beat Chandu's side but had to do that in a comprehensive manner as their run rate was hurt bad in the big loss against Swadesh's side earlier. Game-6 follows.

Game 1-4 Scorecards

Day 1 results and player standings..

Four games were scheduled today. There were two high scoring games involving Swadesh's side and two edge of the seat thrillers played between Jay's,Keyur's and chandu's sides.

The match results are:

Game-1:--- Swadesh's team beats Chandu's team.
Game-2:---Jayashankar's team beats Keyur's team.
Game-3:---Swadesh's team beats Keyur's team.
Game-4:---Chandu's team beats Jayashankar's team.


Two games remain in the qualifying stages and all three teams other than Swadesh's side which most probably has qualified, can make it to the finals. In the case of all of them having equal number of wins then the equation will come down to net run rates. Lots of permutation and combinations possible. The captains will probably have a sleepless night tonight. We will soon update the match reports and post some action pictures.
Meanwhile you might want to have a look at individual player standings for the man of the series here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ars0AWIoHEpYdGMxbEUxelA0SVFOcGEybFhZWWFOM0E&hl=en

The Excitement Begins::--Spring Tournament kicks off..

Although the Fall tournament is the marquee tournament that the USU-Cricket Club with generous sponsorship from the Indian Students organization (ISA) organizes, the Indoor tournament is definitely the most popular format. The USU- International students council too has sponsored a friendly match this season. These are all good signs for the game of cricket at Utah state. 

Coming back to the tournament, it is the T20 equivalent of test cricket. You get fast paced entertainment with a lots of excitement and the matches are almost never one -sided. Different sets of skills are required to excell in this format as teams score in excess of 120 runs in 10 overs. The game is a field full of landmines for bowlers, with even mishits crossing the boundary nets there is not much that a bowler can do. The bowlers have to play a game of chess within the game of cricket to win mental battles with the opposing batsmen. All said and done the bowlers do get to boost their individual averages.    

So get ready for three days of non-stop fun and excitement. The venue is the Nelson Field house, we hope see you all there. GO, AGGIES.......................

Here are the fixtures and teams for the Indoor cricket tournament.

Fixtures:

Monday 21st December :
Team 1 Vs Team 4 : 09:00 a.m to 10:30 a.m
Team 2 Vs Team 3 : 11:00 a.m to 12:30 p.m
Team 2 Vs Team 4 : 01:00 p.m to 02:30 p.m
Team 1 Vs Team 3 : 03:00 p.m to 04:30 p.m

Tuesday 22nd December:
Team 3 Vs Team 4 : 01:00 p.m to 02:30 p.m
Team 1 Vs Team 2 : 03:00 p.m to 04:30 p.m

Wednesday 23nd December:
Finals : 11:00 a.m to 12:30 p.m
Presentation Ceremony: 1:00 p.m to 01:30 p.m

Team 1 :
1) Chandrasekhar Vijyapurpu (C)
2) Sandeep Buddala
3) Ajit Makhija
4) Prateek
5) Aswini Rao
6) Yogendra
7) Shashank Chauhan

Team 2 :
1) Keyur Payak (C)
2) Verma Datla
3) Chakradhar Kasa
4) Aditya Jain
5) Santhi Swarup
6) Nithin Reddy
7) Rajesh Kamatanam

Team 3 :
1) Jai Shankar Byrraju (C)
2) Sushanth Byreddy
3) Purna Kanagala
4) Shashank Anumula
5) Nagaravind
6) Digant Vyas
7) Shravan Macherla

Team 4 :
1) Swadesh Patra (C)
2) Nagendra Jayaraj
3) Manzeer
4) Tarun Mishra
5) Gowtham Morab
6) Vaibhav Ghadiok
7) Porter Illi

Overs per Innings:
Each innings is played for 10 overs Max.
It is the responsibility of the captains to ensure that their teams arrive on time at Nelson Fieldhouse. The matches will start strictly according to the schedule. If you have any further queries, feel free to contact Santhi Swarup K (435-881-0671) or Manzeer.