Match Report - SOX in a Blowout

This past Saturday SOX played against Mammoths at Home in what turned out to be a very exciting and gratifying contest for the Home team. SOX won the toss and deciding to bat first sent in Prasad and Harsh. While Harsh was looking good and scoring at a consistent rate, Prasad was struggling due to an injury he picked up while practicing the day before. He bravely faced up to the bowling and the new ball with the nagging injury but was not able to score as steadily. In trying to flick a ball past fine leg, he missed the line completely and lost his leg stump. Heston joined Harsh in the middle and the left-right combination started to make things difficult for Mammoths who seemed to be struggling with their bowling specially giving away extras at a very quick and consistent pace. Harsh was out LBW and he was followed by the player-of-the-day Rajan. Rajan played a very steady hand with Heston helping him with quick singles on the pitch. At break (End of 13th over), SOX had blasted more than a hundred runs with Rajan looking extremely well settled. During the break everyone encouraged Rajan to think about playing out the entire 25 overs. It turned out that Rajan did exactly that. He formed partnerships with Heston, Jagat, Gaja and Sam, each in excess of 30 runs. He hit three consecutive sixes, two of them hanging in the air for a long time before landing outside a long boundary. Rajan registered his 100, first for the SOX season, in the 24th over. His 100 came in 60 balls faced with 4 sixes and 9 fours. He got an elongated ovation and even the Mammoth field enthusiastically joined in congratulating him on his day. From Mammoths, all the bowlers gave away lots of wides and struggled with their line. Prajwal stood out with his bowling.

 

SOX also smashed their earlier highest score record of 222 and posted 223 for the loss of six at the end of 25 overs.

 

The match looked out of Mammoth's hands as they had resigned looks on their faces. They started poorly against Rajan and Prashanth who were accurate and quick. Some very sharp bowling saw very little given away in extras. SOX showed amazing agility in the field with 2 run outs off of direct hits. Heston took a blinder at Cover-Point region and Mammoths were never able to make a serious attempt at the target. They fought as best they could since they were also playing with only 10 players however, the total, the spirited SOX performance and a long day (made longer because of the extras SOX were able to pick up while batting) took a high toll. Puneet made an amazing comeback after a poor first over to pick up wickets especially Prajwal's critical wicket who had started to pick up runs against the SOX bowlers.

 

Rajan, Prashanth, Puneet, Jagat, Sam and Shahab bowled well to contain Mammoths in the end and SOX were able to carry the day without the theatrics for once.

 

SOX are now 4-2 after 6 games. We have a week off with some umpiring assignments coming up and the next assignment is in Tracy against Tracy United on Jun 22nd.

 

SHAHAB

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