After a week of bad gloomy weather (c’mon this is UK and we start first with weather), Sunday 2nd June 2024 turned out to be perfect sunny and GC day. Caythorpe CC (CCC) had a beautiful ground with a well-manicured outfield and the pitch was rock hard. As there was no telecast after first quarter of the match (enquiries to Tenny), this is the nearly accurate visual replay report of the game and crunch moments. Estimated read time of report 4 minutes as per google analytics apparently.

Chirag our “Capitaan” won the toss for our 6th Game of Division 1 and decided to bat. Our opener meanwhile got lost cruising on his Harley-Davidson Bike and arrived in the nick of time in all leather gear and parked? well (Parking inspector was missing). He (who else has a Harley) went in good high mood and hammered a 4 off the first ball of the match and a couple more. CCC had good opening pair of fast bowlers and their tactic was packed offside field with only one leg side fielder and bowling outside off for half the match. Akhter (GC Debut),Chirag, Naren, Afzal (with latter given dubious dismissal) fell in a small cluster and GC was down at 23 for 4 after 5 overs. Tenny hit 2 crisp 4’s and was playing well and hit a cracking shot but CCC bowler Butler took the tracer bullet return reflex catch and GC score line was 54 for 5 after 13 overs.

Tarun had gone to bat in the 3rd over. I went in and with Tarun we decided to wait for the one or two not on line ball in an over to score risk free as there were 27 overs left. It was great to see between 17 overs how Tarun played with patience on the merit of the ball bowled and I emulated looking for gaps to take the quick singles and did score 2 boundaries. We put on a recovery 48 runs for the 6th wicket partnership with the old horse contributing 17 of it until the 30th over when the score was 102 (Editor's note: incidentally his highest score for GC) . Fazeel scored a quickfire 17 with 4 good boundaries and was out with the score at 132. Naren then asked Bobby to go and bat (?again) and we all scrambled to check the rules book. What Naren did not know (as he was MIA enjoying cider) was that Bobby had gone after me and got out the first ball and was sitting with full gear on, dejected. Dan the Man added another 20 with Tarun and GC played the full 40 overs finishing 157 for 9. Batting MVP Tarun scored a fab 54 with 8 boundaries off 115 balls, remaining not out. He held one end till the end over 37 overs.

Caythorpe started cautious but a good high catch in the deep by Tenny gave Naren a wicket with score reading 14 for 1. Pressure was applied from over 6.5 to 9.6 with no runs off 20 balls by Naren and Afzal with accurate bowling and fielders supporting. Goes into GC record and in house statistician still tight lipped where it stands in top 3 despite wild paparazzi rumor of 23 dot balls previously by Naren and Tenny (Statistician's note: not enough reliable data) Anyway continuing with the game, Afzal persisted and then clean bowled batsmen # 3, who was going at run a ball making it 46 for 2. Some quick scoring followed and the last ball of the 16th over, Tarun ran like Bolt for 50 meters to his right as the ball left the bat with perfect anticipation in deep mid on to take a wow running catch, without a sweat, to get Dan on the board making it 68 for 3 in 16 overs.

This followed a period where CCC took an upper hand and their opener Chris scored freely and at 106 for 3 in just 22 overs (with target of 158) it was looking difficult for us. Then came the inspiring speech from Capitaan which went without biceps emojis and was simple. Don’t drop shoulders guys. We need just 2 wickets and the tide will turn. Honestly no biceps and we were motivated and said c’mon lets go get them or on hindsight Bobby go help us get them (who knew at that stage).

Veerabhadra Pothula aka Bobby who got good reprimand (jovial) from the usual 3 for not scoring, dropping a catch or two was looking to make up and the third ball of 23rd over bowled, what the trio collectively judged, was a ghatiya (worst) ball of the match and Chris who was cruising on 44 runs hammered it to Anoop who took a superb catch at square leg to get Bobby to register his bowling trophies of the match on the board. Next ball was another dolly ghatiya and the new top gun batsmen of higher league swept and got a top edge and Anoop took a second well judged catch. 110 for 5 ! Chirag showed his 2 (limited) real biceps in joy and said c’mon GC let’s finish this and our Trapezius muscle pulled up the shoulders fully. Bright light at end of tunnel seen even on a sunny day at this stage. Bobby will argue till the cows come home that it takes real special skills to bowl and get wickets with ghatiya balls! True art it is !

There was a lot of strategy/ loud talk going on between balls on the field thereafter from slip and deep midwicket between 2 Gujjus in Gujarati (like Modi and Shah), so much so that I presume my brain automatically picked up Gujju passively very well. At one point after they discussed “Amē Vardnē ahīnthī kavaramāṁ khasēḍī śakī'ē chī'ē” I started moving from gully to cover automatically even before Chirag asked me to move to cover in English. Bobby picked his 3rd wicket in his next over with a great leg spin delivery that took the edge of the bat and was dying close behind the wicket. Both Fazeel(WK) and Chirag in slip did a great forward dive, but Fazeel won and took a good one handed catch. 113 for 6. Afzal chipped in next over with ump agreeing with a LBW. 114 for 7. Afzal’s tight line bowling and stupendous effort read a great 10 overs-5 maidens-16 runs-2 wickets!

Bobby continued with his inspired spell with good (genuine) leg spin and got the remaining 3 wickets with CCC all out for 131 in 31 overs. Hats off to Bowling MVP Bobby with a spell of 6 overs – forget maidens – 24 runs – 6 wickets !!!! Wow beat the great GC record of Nags Sivaji of 6 for 27 who apparently has gone into a short time depression from Sunday hearing this but will recover soon so we hear. It was a good team effort in the end with a 4 match unbeaten streak over 2 weekends and that too following a spectacular tie on 1/6/24 in Division 3 match by GC. Big thanks to our omnipresence Anil for helping with scoring and event management after the match.

GC after this match are in 5th place out of 10 in Division 1 Lincoln & District League with 50 points with 2 wins, 3 loss and 1 cancelled. Oh no, what have I done, this will stimulate a flood of biceps emojis now !

DISCLOSURE – I (Varad) lost in the team rock paper scissors decider and had to write match report and no, Nags Sivaji did not pay me to mention his bowling pride record, nor will he make me his special omelette in Coimbra in October as it is full board stay. The 2 Gujjus are my great friends. Harley Man is Naren. Cannot name the “usual 3” as you need to play GC games to know them and the great humorous banter.