TCL 2021: Game against EV-Avengers
Please bear with me as I am rusty, writing a report after a long break. I need a couple of chilled ones but it's just the morning, but it’s Friday so who is watching 😄. Anyways almost everyone was at the ground for warmup and got ready for the game. Forcibly someone (anonymous person) made all the players run around the ground as a warmup routine. The #TheAggressiveSkipper (sshhh ... don’t tell it to him) went for the toss and won for a change and took batting. It was good that he went with his instinct. He knows our strength is bowling and fielding, it is what it is.
Vikram and his new and old opening partners were back to pavilion before we even started to settle down. Gagan #TheOnlyPoonjabi joined Vikram and they started accumulating runs in their own style. They were sticking to a consistent run rate and putting pressure on the opponents with their invincible partnership. It was a treat to watch Vikram’s reverse shots and Gagan’s positive batting in the middle. Vikram fell at the score of 44. Dharani joined Gagan and took the score to 53. After that the Titans experienced a small collapse (by now we should get used to this type of collapse in batting department … oops … just trying to challenge all the batsmen), we lost 5 wickets for 6 runs. Then #TheNiceGuy and the cool guy (I mean the mad guy 😜) decided to gather as many runs as possible. They got just 6 runs in the last over but to me that was enough, we grew up hearing this "Every run counts" and that showed up in the result of this game.
The opponents started chasing after the break and we drew the first blood in the second over. We all knew they have 3 good batsmen, one of them scored a century this season. He was swinging his bat at every ball he faced. We missed a couple of chances for him but in that process we collected couple of their wickets. Vikram was bowling awesome that day with a tight line that didn’t give any opportunity to the opponents. Once he took their best batsman of the day, we didn’t look back. We charged, you could feel the energy on the field. Everyone was pumped up on the field until the 13th over. Let me use a few sentences to describe the situation prior to the 13th over. All the brains were at work deciding who will be the bowlers for 13th, 14th and the last over as we knew it would go down to the wire. Suddenly Vamsi came out of nowhere and said he knows Shashank and he can’t take the pressure of 14th and 15th over. So the skipper handed over the ball to his deputy the 13th over. He was all over the place in that over, bowled 3 extras and conceded 8 runs. We should ask Vamsi where Shashank can bowl now 😜. Just messing with you Shashank, we all know you have the potential, just challenging you to see the 2020 Shashank back on the field. They needed 18 in 3 overs and it came down to only 10 in the last 2 overs. We experienced 2 awesome overs from Dharani and Pathuri #ThePerfectAllrounder. The ever reliable Dharani gave just 2 runs and we got 1 more wicket. Finally the last over came and our hearts were in our mouths but we were hopeful as we needed just 1 wicket. Pathuri bowled awesome and they took 2 runs in the first 5 balls. The final ball and 6 runs were required and the batsman hit it in the air and it was going towards the boundary. It went to the guy who wanted to win this game the most. Thank God he took the catch and silenced the opponents.
Guys, couple of points:
Our bowling unit can defend any score.
The batting team slowly getting better and I am pretty sure they will click soon.
All the crunch games like these counts a lot and are good for the future.
The fielding unit is really working together as a team.
The most important point, Titans are slowly performing as a team.
I would say, Titans is back 💪
Note: Hash-tagged only the players who were not part of the reports earlier