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05/11/2016POSTED BY Florida Cricket Association Admin


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Disciplined bowling seals Royals Win
So we are finally commencing the playoffs and the first match was between RP Rockers and Roayls. Both the teams were missing few key players. Anupam the leading wicket taker for RP Rockers and Pinak for Royals were not part of the squad. But as the saying goes the show must go on. RP Rockers won the toss and elected to bat and looking back they might have chosen differently as the top order failed completely. They were down to 7 for 3 in just three over and against a good team like Royals it is difficult to get out of that hole. With the rattling nerves Subash and JP tried to settle down the innings and the moment they start to build their innings Subash was caught at long on. RP Rockers kept loosing wickets at regular intervals and were able to post a total of 89 with contributions from JP (21 runs), Saminathan and Karunakar who scored 13 each. Faisal A was the top bowler with three wickets. One would imagine with a humble score of 89 it will be a cake walk for Royals to chase it down, but that wasn’t the case. In reply Asim (22 off 24 balls, 2 4’s 1 6) gave Royals a good start, however their middle order collapsed. It was Senthil’s crucial 19 runs that pushed Royals towards the target. It all came down to the last over as 5 were required of it. Milan finished off the matters by hitting a 2 and a 6 to seal the win in this nail biter. RP ended the match with head held high. Royals will be glad to win the match and with Pinak back, they will be a formidable team in the Semis.
 
Strikers Avenged Blues to Semis
The match that we all were diligently watching was finally played Sunday early morning. Two of the strongest teams faced each other in the leagues and as fate had it were facing each other again in the quarter finals as well. I wish this was scripted but it is not. Toss went Strikers’ way and they chose to bat. After losing Ravi K early, Praveen and Bhargav took the mantel and had a good partnership. Bhargav scored a quick 25 which gave Strikers the platform. Praveen and Ravi R accelerated in 9th and 10th scoring 14 and 16 runs in them. After the departure of Praveen, Ravi B pushed the total score of Strikers to 132 by scoring a brisk 28 of 20 balls. Kranti G once again took 4 wickets. A score of 132 is decent especially against a team with a lot of experience. In reply Blues lost two wickets in the very first over. It was Samar who took these wickets and immediately Blues were on the back foot. If you give an opening to an aggressive team they will punish you till you bleed. That is exactly what happened. In form batsmen like Agastya, Sampath, Hemant, Rohit, Koti couldn’t do anything against Strikers bowling attack. Even Bhagwant who was the only hope for Blues to come back wasn’t able to deliver as he got out in Rajeev’s over. Blues were never able to recover and kept loosing wickets regularly. They ended up scoring just 70 and were bowled out. Samar, Rajeev,Ravi R and Anand took 9 wickets. Strikers out played the defending champions in all departments and hope they got there sweet revenge in style:).

Abhishek lead Raiders Onslaught
Southside having lost to Raiders in the last league match while setting up a target, made them think to elect bowling after winning the toss. Raiders’ opener Ravi started off the innings with a massive six towards sweeper cover followed by sweet cover drive for four. Ravi was successful in scoring 15 runs out of the first over but that wasn’t long when he got out in second over for Sujesh. Indra and Faisal were able to score some quick runs but had to return pavilion losing their wicket for Praful and Kirthi. It was Abhishek who found his way for Raiders with a blistering 46 runs (6 4’s, 3 6’s) boosting the score towards 150’s. Raiders’ fire cracker (aka puppy) who is in tremendous form by hitting any kind of ball outside the boundary, scored 33 runs (19 balls, 1 4’s, 3 6’s) which took them to 160’s. It wasn’t pleasant for Raiders losing their 4 main batsmen for 0’s. In the end rookie Joy pounded the ball for 4 and 6 scoring 10 runs in just 2 balls. At one point Raiders were looking to reach 200 but with overall with good bowling by Sujesh, Praful and Kirthi Southside was able to restrict Raiders for 171 runs. In return Southside’s top batsmen Sanjay (24 of 42 balls) and Bharath(35 off 27 balls) gave a tough fight until Bharath had to return for an extra ordinary catch by Joy. Amit had a good start but had to give up for an IPL style catch by Prasad near boundary line stunning the whole spectators. Faisal and Abhishek were able to take 7 wickets while Nazy took another 2 wickets leaving no wickets for Ravi restricting Southside to 103 runs. Raiders outplayed Southside to move to Semis. Not to forget Faisal now owns the first hat trick in this season for Raiders and there was another performance by me which may not need attention in this article ;)
 
  
Magical 22 Balls stuns Kaatans
Have you ever seen any youth take a safe route in anything they do? I guess 99% will say No. Same applies to this team. Winning the toss and electing to bowl against Kaatans was a bold and risky move but 22 ball’s captain Rakesh choose to do so. Another bold move was he started the innings with spinner/medium pace ish bowler Harish in against Kaatans top Batsmen Rajbabu. If it works he is a genius if it didn’t then he will be crucified. Did it worked well for them? I would say yes their bowling attack was able to rattle the top and middle order for just 46 runs. It was Divyesh and Senthilkumar who took the responsibility to move the score board scoring 24 and 20 runs each. When all hopes of Kaatans was on Akash, 22 balls’ best fielder Mahesh disappointed them by taking a stunning catch at 3rd man getting Akash out on first ball leaving Kaatans nowhere. Overall Kaatans were able to score 101 runs with some good bowling display by Hareesh, Sakthivel and Raghav. In reply 22 balls got to a good start. After Ali got run out trying to snatch a cheeky run, Varshit and Rakesh scored 12 and 18 to get close to the target. With some good contribution from Sakthivel and Vivek as 22 balls won in 16.1 overs. It was Chandra who was able to show some good display of bowing taking 3 wickets. Kaatans might wonder what happened as they were stunned by a team playing their second tournament. Not to take any credit away but 22 played really well and will face Strikers in the Semis. This will be an interesting match.
 
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 PS: FCA-EC invites you to join us for our Spring T20 Finals Event on May 21st.
Please visit http://evite.me/FZpr5dqmFz and RSVP as soon as you can.
 
 

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