Match Report
Nashville Occassionals Cricket Club
at Nashville (Rhodes Park)
July 16'2005

We played a 25 overs match with Nashville Occassionals Cricket Club at Rhodes Park (Metro Center) ground on July 16th. NOCC fielded a good team with Calvin Barnett and Emill Barnett.

NOCC won the toss and decided to bat. Lyder and Tim, opened for NOCC. We got an early break through when Ashfaq had Tim caught by keeper (Chintu) on the leg side. With Calvin at number three, NOCC started to build a strong inning. Alam and Ashfaq bowled with tight line and length. They never gave batsmen a chance to cut lose. The breakthrough came, when Mayur bowled Calvin. Lyder played an excellent inning of 52 with a couple of sixes. NOCC were 67 for one in the first thirteen overs. Calvin scored 39. Our bowlers kept NOCC batsmen in check and never gave them opportunity to score freely. Ashfaq was the pick of our bowlers taking five wickets. NOCC scored 126 for 8 in 25 overs.

Bowling Stats: Ashfaq – 5 for 20 (5 overs), Naveed – 2 for 10 (4 overs), Mayur – 1 for 14 (3 overs), Alam – none for 9 (3 overs), Bimal – none for 22 (5 overs), Kishore – none for 34 (5 overs).

There was quite an improvement in the area of extras, we gave 17 with 10 wides.

Needing 5 runs an over, we started with caution. Sunny and Kishore opened the innings. We lost Sunny early to LBW decision. Kishore, Piyush, Amer and Ashfaq kept the score moving with singles. Mayur hit some good shots and kept up with the run rate. Alam hit a couple of sixes and reduced the run rate to 4.5 in the last ten overs. Then in the next 5 overs, NOCC bowlers bowled with great accuracy and gave only 5 runs and took three wickets. We needed 35 in the last 5 overs with three wickets in hand. Bimal and Chintu were on the crease; both scored intelligently, converting singles into two’s, and two’s into three’s. In the last two overs the target was 16. With Lyder bowling, Bimal hit some tremendous shots, and we reached the target with one over to spare. Calvin and Damian took two wickets each.

Batting Stats: Mayur -19, Bimal – 16 not out, Chintu – 13 not out, Alam – 13, Amer – 13, Piyush – 12, Kishore – 8.

NOCC gave 36 extras with 20 wides.

It was our best bowling performance against a good batting team.

Match Report
Barlett Cricket Club
at Memphis, TN
July 24'2005

Sunday’s cricket match with Bartlett Cricket Club (Memphis) was unforgettable for the reason that one hopes we don’t have to encounter again. We knew, it was going to be hot, but did not have a clue how it was going to impact us on the field. By the time we finished the game in the 21st over of the BCC’s innings, we had only 8 players fielding for NCC and BCC had one umpire. Players were trying everything from water soaked towels on their heads to pouring ice in the caps. The grass was so hot that one could feel the steam coming out of ground and blowing right into your face. The temperature was around 97F with heat index of 110F or so. We hung in there, and finished the match with a convincing win.

We won the toss, and without any hesitation decided to bat. Kishore and Alam started the innings. Alam was out early with a great catch at second slip. Piyush and Kishore steadied the ship and scored with singles and twos. They kept a good run rate of 6 in the first 10 overs. Kishore was run out at 31 to a direct throw. Mark hit some big shots in a quick 53 while Piyush completed his third fifty of the season. Mayur had solid 32 not out, with Emill had 19 . We ended up scoring 265 for 6 in 30 overs. This was our highest score in matches.

Batting: Kishore – 31, Piyush – 57, Mark – 53, Mayur – 32 not-out, Emill – 19

With a tall order of chasing 9 runs per over, BCC had their work cut out for them. Alam started the bowling with an excellent line and length. He beat the batmen consistently, and after a couple of dropped catches was to able to get the opener to a good catch by Chintu down the leg side. On the other end Mark started the bowling with a shorter run-up. After three overs we suffered out first ‘heat’ causality, Mark ran out of steam and ran for the shade…Alam had another wicket, Bimal & Emill took the next five wickets. During this time, we lost three more players to the ‘heat’. Finally, Mayur took the ninth wicket and then in the same over Chintu ran the last batsman out. BCC was all out at 117. Our fielding was quite good, especially Mahender and Sunny who despite the heat showed lot of energy on the field. Sunny held a great catch at mid-on to a low drive. Ejaz from BCC played the captain’s inning and was not out at 40.

Bowling: Mark – (3 overs, 0 for 11), Alam – (5 overs, 2 for 22), Emill – (6 overs, 3 for 33), Bimal (6 overs, 2 for 22), Mayur (1 over, 1 for 0)