It is my first second round game in 2008. I could not play last week for multiple reasons. I had to go with my son for a city (Farmington Hills) parade and one of my college mate came from Dayton. Looks like, Falcons played an emotionally exhaustive match in my absence and enough damage and control was made before game against stars.

Both team was on time on fine Michigan Sunday morning and quick in setting up the field with umpire’s concurrence. Toss won by Stars and with out any hesitation, they decided to bat. Few ramblings on how bad the field was and Sun was coming straight to the batsman.

Falcons’s bowling

Srikanth and Uppu started our bowling today. There were few wides to start with. Except the wides both bowled really good. The pitch was set such way that the wicket keeping position was half in the grass and half in the circle (we play in the base ball ground). I knew from the beginning, it was going to be tough to keep the wickets in that position. I could not cleanly stop few wide balls and fetched additional runs. Stars were very slow in scoring where as our bowlers were scoring fast for them by bowling wides and I assisted them by not collecting the wide balls cleanly.

Uppu bowled few awesome deliveries today. There was a distinct nick on his bowling and umpire for some reason was not sure and did not give him out. It was very clean caught behind and Uppu and Falcons became unlucky. After few balls, the same batsman played a lazy stroke for a very good length rising ball and this time umpire was focusing enough to give a caught behind decision with out any hesitation. There was another catching opportunity from Uppu’s bowling and I tired my best. I could not fully capture what happened and why I missed that catch. I touched the ball and did the ball had enough spin to escape my finger? Did I jump late to the raising ball? Did I jump faster? I really do not know but I missed a difficult catch (It is difficult because it was at least 3 foot above my head).

Keshav has been consistently bowling good and his swings are noteworthy. I wish to see him bowl the red ball with 3 slips. He bowled exemplary deliveries.

Hari has been doing good both in the field and with his bat. He made few great stops and made a run out. I liked what I said to him. “Some times our weakness becomes strength” He was throwing the ball so high to me when the batsman was in the middle of the pitch. Since he throws slow, it helped to jump accordingly to collect the ball and run out the batsman. New Sudhir made few excellent fielding. Few well judged catches made by Keshav, Srikanth and Matta.

Finally, Stars were all out for 68 runs and significant contributor to the tally was extras we gave him in wide,byes and no balls.

Falcon’s batting

Babu and I went to start the innings. Babu treated the bad balls and respected the good balls. I was rotating the strike by placing the ball. There was no pace in their bowling. The ball does not come to the bat and even the full toss balls you need to wait so long to connect it. I made 3 pull shorts and fetched 2 runs each and placed 4 times in the gap for an easy single. In this season, it was the first time, I got out for a good ball. In all other games, either I get run outs or chase the wide balls. It was raising delivery I tried to place it in the gully and the ball was quick and I was not quick enough. The ball was going to the first slip and fielder took a sharp catch. It was a good catch. Before I got out, Babu defended the ball and the ball was coming so slow and it hit the bat after he completed his stroke and went for an easy catch. Piyush, Keshav, Hari & Sudhir all got out cheaply. Matta and Sai took the game to the end with their patience. We won the game with bonus point. We spared almost 50% of their bowling. It was a good practice match for Falcons and it was a good umpiring from Sankar.