It was a long-awaited fixture in the club calendar, so eagerly were some people looking forward to GC playing our formidable opposition that the skipper decided to plan well in advance to be strategically almost 200 miles away on the day cheering the team on with the club chairman, the club’s most effective opening bowler and arguably the most vocal Tiger in the club. Surely, the dinner conversation must have drifted to the “Loins” and brown paper packages under the table. But we digress.

The team was so eager to start that we arrived at the ground well before any of our opposition did. Pitch inspections, casual COVID chats and warmup laps around the ground done, stand-in skipper Naren offered a huge slab of chocolate to the players to recover, and promptly lost the toss. We took to the field with 10 men just to make a statement about our fielding abilities. In actual fact, our 11th player Sree arrived well in time for the game, saw us warming up and excused himself from our exertions to look for his cricket spikes that he forgot to bring. That’s what happens when you play your first game of the season.

Our opening bowler Sakthi, revelling in this new responsibility was sledged by one of the umpires who wanted to know if his bowling was still as terrible as it used to be at Scothern. Undaunted, he started his spell with reasonable accuracy and less than reasonable pace. In the absence of our other regular star opening bowler who had deliberately missed this match, the Gupta clan offered a more-than-capable replacement. The fashion statement with the alice-band aside, Vaibhav found encouragement from the same umpire who was really impressed at his rhythm and control… that after signalling a wide and a no ball in that over.

The young openers started off briskly and confidently, but one of them was undone by the deceptive line wide outside off stump by veteran Vel who induced an uppish cover drive to the left of the star of the Gupta clan, Rishabh who pulled off a Ben Stokes style catch to chalk up Sakthi’s first victim of the afternoon. Vaibhav was determined not be overshadowed and accounted for the other opener with one that rattled the stumps.

Bracebridge’s No.3 was looking threatening with 3 quick boundaries. Sakthi had other ideas. Bowling around the wickets, he hit the batsman twice on the pads, pleaded desperately but in vain with the umpire, and unable to resort to DRS. Taking matters into his own hands, he took the umpire (and the batsman) out of the equation and bowled him off the last ball of the over. His celebratory screams were heard in Waddington.

Not satisfied with this, he also lent a hand to give Vaibhav his second wicket with a well-judged catch that nearly wasn’t so well judged. Post dismissal discussions turned to depth perception in advancing years. Soon after, the opposition skipper dared to take on the throwing arm of the oldest player on the GC team sheet. Vaibhav collected brilliantly and whipped off the bails to account for wicket no. 5. At 54/5 in the 14th over, the game was getting away from the hosts very quickly. Two decent partnerships put on some valuable runs, but a brilliant double-tag fielding effort by Rishabh and Senthil chalked up the 2nd run out of the game, and soon after, Rishabh took the ball and bowled the confident young top scorer around his legs with a brilliant delivery. He wasn’t done just yet. Egged on by his dad bowling a tight line and length from the other end, he looked threatening every time the ball left his fingers. He took control of the rest of the innings. With another catch to give Naren his only wicket, he came on for his 6th over of his spell and closed the innings with a double wicket maiden. Chevvel is really enjoying his keeping this season (3rd stumping to go with his 2 catches). The hosts finished 1 short of 100 in 29 overs. Rishabh finished with 3/12 to add to his two catches and one assisted runout.

At the break, scorer Anil was dispatched to procure refreshments for parched throats, while philosophical discussions about old and fat ladies singing took place. The new opening pair Sree and Adarsh, both making their debuts this season went in with strict instructions to settle down and take their time in the middle. Adarsh may not have heard the skipper. He knocked a no ball for a boundary and promptly skied the next one. 7 for 1 after the first over. Sakthi, who was flashy bright blue Hardik Pandya style batting gloves for a while (did he wear them, didn’t he wear them?) walked out to take control. A patient partnership followed. Sree fell in the 10th over caught at first slip. Just when we begin to believe that we could write a GC match report without mentioning Pravin (he was having a regular day on the field like the rest of us mortals, even dropping the occasional juggled catch) he walked out at 34/2. Hard to imagine Sakthi outscoring Pravin, but he was riding high from the last game. Reverse sweeps came into play along with well-run 3s. He must be really working hard on his fitness. The next 9 overs were an exercise in patience and discipline as the batsmen trundled along at 3 runs an over. I’m not sure what happened during the sanitisation break, but Pravin had enough of this tempo. The 20th over went for 10 runs, the 21st went for 17 runs and the two balls in the 22nd went for 8 runs. Pravin’s last few scoring shots read 4,1,4,6,1,6,1,4,4 to finish off the match in style, winning by 8 wickets with plenty of time to spare. Pravin finished on 47*, Sakthi on 25*

4 wins out of 5 this season, GC is still at the top of the table. Chirag must be seriously considering if he should extend his holiday. With him, the team does well, without him, the team does better!!

Match Scorecard