Match 1: Reforma Vs Aztecs (11th Nov 2018)
Umpires: Shantanau Kaveri & Matt Noble
Scorer: Kishore Reddi
Toss: Reforma (Elected to Bat)
Written by Aman Arora
A much awaited start to the tournament which has been delayed because of the climate conditions. Now the wait is over and the match between Reforma and Aztecs lived upto its expectations.
Reforma has selected new captain (Rama) this year to scale new heights. First of all congratulations to him for being the captain of the Reforma Club and All the very best for the season!
Umpires were ready for the toss and Aztecs captain called it wrong and Reforma Won the Toss and elected to bat first and wanted to set a strong target. But the God has other plans for this day and the day really belonged to the Aztecs bowler Harish Kumar. He started the first over and immediately sent 2 players back in the pavillion and one of the wicket was of Nithin who is their mainstay in batting and that put Reforma on the backfoot. On the other side other Anurag, Matt, Harprit had supported well to Harish. In his second over, Harish had their another opening batsman Terry and another big blow to the Reforma team and they were 3 down for only 6 runs and then captain Rama himself had to walk to the crease. He along with Jagdish tried to steadied the innings and held a decent partnership with Jagdish of 34 runs. The partnership was getting bigger and Aztecs brought Harish back to the attack in 9th over and immediately he broke the partnership and had Jagdish caught by Amit Kumar, who took a really good catch running backwards at mid wicket and the next ball Rama was also caught plumb in the crease and also had Ben Owen bowled of his last ball of his 3rd over and Aztecs brought themselves back again in the match. After that some small partnerships took the Reforma total to 60 runs. Matt Tyler and Anurag had 2-2 wickets each but main destroyer for Reforma was Harish who took 6 wickets for just 9 runs. These are the BEST BOWLING FIGURES by any bowler till date in the league.
Aztecs just had to bat sensible to get to this target and they started with Eder and Seetha. This was another marquee moment as Eder being a Mexican has played his first game. Hope league will see more Mexican Players joining the league. Eder got runout in the 2nd over and walked in the Aztecs Captain Aman who started scoring freely and put the new bowler Satish on the backfoot and Rama had to brought in Nithin to stop the flow of runs. In the same over Seetha got run out and Aztecs were now 22 for 2 in 5th over. In the next over Rama had Matt Tyler caught in the slip and Aztecs came in a spot of bother with 26 for 3 in 6th over. Then Aman and Puneet had a decent partnership of 19 runs and which steadied the ship. But as always the game of cricket is not over until the last ball is bowled and Azytecs lost 2 more wickets and were 52 for 6. But Aman and Anurag took the team home. Anurag hit the winning runs. For Aztecs, their captain, Aman, remained unbeaten on 35 and was the highest scorer for the match.
Although low scoring match but it had all the excitement of a close game.
Umpires awarded well deserved Player of the match award to Harish Kumar and also signed the Match ball and presented to him as a token of remembrance for his achievement.
A clinical performance for the Aztecs in the field had won them the game but definitely need a lot of improvement in the batting department and so do Reforma.
A lot to play for in this Tournament and definitely we will see more exciting cricket in the upcoming matches.
In the end, a big thanks to the umpires and scorers! |
