Hooah...am pumped up for this one. It was pretty hard umpiring last weeks game without getting to play at all. Its finally almost Sunday (I know, its still Thursday night; still, its almost) and my team's turn to get our game on. Its going to be pretty hard topping last week's excitement but my guess is that this should be a pretty close one. On paper, we (words like we and our mean the Royal Lions which I am a part of) should be the favorites for this one. Well, any team with a guy like Mark on it should be the favorites anyways. But if last week's game and the ongoing T20 World Cup has taught us anything, it is that Shit Happens. There can never be any clear favorites in this format of cricket.
Teams:
Underdog Billionaires (I am tired of typing this longish name and will henceforth address them as uBills)
Raghu Srinivasan (C), Ragu Vijayakumar, Kamran Masih, Owen O'Callaghan (wk), Vemuri Srinivas, Matt Hawkins and Nadeem Joseph, Bishnu Ramsarran
Unfortunately, two of the best players on this team for the last game were out of the pool. Sid's gone and Doc might not be available. Troy (a Gayanese medium pacer and an excellent fielder) could play with uBills if he turns up.
I think the team unearthed an exciting bowler to share the new ball with Ragu in Kamran (more about his DESTROYING pace later). Ragu had a pretty good outing and was mostly very disciplined and thus effective with his bowling. Raghu has generally been in good form with the bat but got out pretty cheaply last week and this could be his game. It will be interesting to see if they follow the same strategy of opening their batting with Ragu. They will definitely have an advantage with BigO behind the stumps. He's been an outstanding keeper for any team that he's played on.
Watch out for: Srini; He is a tricky customer with both his power hitting and his more than medium pace. If he gets going, can cause a lot of damage very quickly and can take a bunch of wickets with his unsuspecting run-up.
Royal Lions:
Mark Berwick (C) Munna Hussain, Lazar Joseph, Sachin Shah, Naveen Margankunte, Misa Tupou and Sankar Venkataraman
Since we dont have a regular keeper, I reckon Misa, Mark and Munna will split up the keeping duties. I think we have a really good bowling attack with a lot of variation though we are the only team with two spinners in it (something tells me the rival skipper's going to enjoy it). Our two best batsmen are definitely Munna and Mark. It'll be interesting to see how we deal with it if one of them falls cheaply.
Watch out for: Munna. He is one of the most consistent members of the club. Bats aggressively and bowls with a lot of passion.
Key match up: This is the easiest one. Mark facing Ragu. There is something special about this rivalry. I suspect it creeps out of the immense respect they have for each other's skills. Ragu turns into the incredible hulk whenever Mark comes into bat; and boundaries off Ragu have a special place in Mark's book.
Tidbits:
As promised earlier, about Kamran's destroying pace; He bowled a toe crushing (literally) yorker that fractured Pankaj bhai's foot (will post a picture of the broken foot soon). That explains Pankaj bhai's lack of scoring opportunities last week. Kamran's got a pretty smooth run up and can definitely generate plenty pace.
May the best team (Lions) win...!!
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