Yes, back to blogging and this is the last one on internal cricket for sure. Lot many people asked me this question........where is the blog? Wouldn't you write one?......or do you write only when you win?.....Well I always wanted to write no matter we win or loose.....but time constraints have resulted in this delay. So on a sunday afternoon, having seen some real upsets in T20 World cup and hoping to see more I will try and put my views on the last tourney.....with one eye on Television and the other writing this blog can expect an unstructured blog.....anyways I don't think the others are good........anyways....
So finally it was that time of the year where everyone awaits in BMC to get on to the field, have some fun, get all acts together, practise........... some ready for the 'Badla', some taking it just as part of entertainment. But overall whenever this internal tournament starts its really a different atmosphere...everyone is eager to get on the field and perform. At Vikings it was somewhat different this time. We had people on paper but that did not translate onto people on field! Nitin Rathod had joined back Vikings and so did Kapil and a few new faces. This definitely strengthened the team, but it surely was not the same that we had seen for a number of years........Winning a tournament 4 times in a row is no mean feat..... probably people were thinking.....We have been there........we have seen it all. Intensity was definitely lacking this time around. 7 people for most of the practise session, hardly 11 available on match day.....thats not Vikings for sure. Injuries, work/home stress everything played a part.
With all these things we began the tournament, a couple of easy league matches, a good match against Blade (new team) gave us some confidence. The preparation this time was so bad that I was expecting us to have some setback in the league macthes itself, but our bowling put us past the initial phases. Probably one look at the stats would definitely reveal that Viking has the best bowling attack. Vineet, Kapil, Tejas, Akshat, Aditya, Nitin himself.....well 8 bowlers in a side of 11. Thats the reason we had 4 teams knocked out for a mere 30-40 runs range in 10 overs. It speaks a lot about the deft field placements, right person at right place and importantly the Attitude! With so little, rather ineffective practise sessions we could manage these kinds of wins, speaks volumes of individual skill sets rather than team work.
We managed to get into quarter finals with 3 out of 3 wins, easy win in quarters did not help either as it never tested us out. The only win so far in which we had to actually put some effort was against blade and we won that by 50 odd runs, so we had easy wins till this point of time. Personally after this win i felt we would be tested in semis by the enthusiastic SA Support team. Likes of Hari, Devendra,Uppal,Abhishek would definitely put us under a lot of pressure. As a team we were all geared up and motivated to thwart this team, that was the only goal and for the first time i saw people all geared up mentally to handle the tough situation on a saturday morning. But this match turned out to be a cake walk. I was really frustrated with this, since we were still not tested. Many others and myself had hardly held a bat till this time. Kapil and Vineet bowled brilliantly and we were off to a great start. Vineet got a few crucial wickets at the top and Kapil rocked the middle order. Tejas and myself had very little to do in this match and at the end we had to chase 35 which we did with some changes in batting order, Prasad going ahead of others. Hats off to the field placements that we made in this match. It was 10/10 and we did hardly anything wrong that day.If I was the organiser and if I had to give Kingfisher Fair Play award :) then definitely I would have given that to Hari for his great sportsmanship. He had nicked the ball behind to the keeper and he walked straight without looking at the umpire and this was in a situation where the SA support needed him badly. Hats off to you Hari. So the goal was achieved and achieved quite easily.
So the scene was set, Remedy defeated Blade to set up a clash with Vikings. Remedy was definitely the most improved and disciplined team for sure. University groung practise sessions, I could see a lot of guys practising.....this was a totaly different scene from the last 4 years. Emphasis more on fielding, average 10 people on the ground everyday......hey thats the exact Vikings style isn't it? Well yes they played and they thought just like the Vikings even in the finals and were able to defeat us convincingly. If I had to give credit to one person for all this, then definitely it has to be Abhijit Gadgil. He did all the right things this time. Ensured discipline in practise, put fielding as a pre-requisite for winning. Won the toss and elected to field (no Remedy team has done that till date), ensured Yogesh Somawanshi finished his quota at the start rather than keeping his overs in the end.I have talked to him on all of these things in the earlier years and he implemented it in totality and he got the right results. He knew that bowling was our strength and hence asked us to bat. For the first time batting was tested and my worst fears turned into reality at the time when we were on the verge of making it 5 times in a row. I was satisfied with the way we tried to defend. I have always believed in fighting till the last and it was good to see that we stretched Remedy till the 14 th over. Overall a great show, not a happy ending for Vikings but not bad either coz i never expected us to reach the finals in the first place.
Hats off to Remedy for the way they played........hats off to the organisers specially Louis for the ground, Vineet Shripal and others for putting things in place in very short time.
Surely this was my last internal, leaving the field on a high.....though not with a win but we created a record of 37 wins in a row. Am sure this record would stay for a long long time........but surely this would not be my last blog.....in fact i am thinking of putting more things in place.....so watch out for this space!! :)
