Saturday 30 April 2016

Match report - Indcan I Vs Okanagan Royals I @Keogan Sports Park on April 30,2016 - By Ankit P.

While we had never won an away game at Okanagan before, we were quietly confident as we were fielding the best Indcan side taken there till today. Winning the toss we chose to bat first and put the opposition under pressure with our bowling after putting up a competitive total. Our innings was started strongly by our openers Sudipta and John, both seeing out the new ball and getting set on the crease. Along with Sunil, our top 3 batsman scored about 110 runs among them with a few last over flourishes from Vikram and Abhinav of 20 and extras adding our total to a respectable 184.

We were confident we could defend the total and we got off to a good start, holding the batting side to a run rate of 2 for the first 15 overs. Later with a few quick catches and run outs, we tightened our hold over the win. But just after the drinks break we started leaking runs and suddenly even after being 7 down the batting team was fulfilling their required run rate of 7 an over. They were moving swiftly towards the target. We were showing symptoms of dropped morale by not saving the singles and dropping catches. Most of our bowlers had finished their quota of 9 overs and we were going to fall short of bowlers to finish our 45.

Harshmeet, who had bowled a few leg spin overs, but went for runs was then brought in as a change. He not only broke the partnership with a brilliant caught and bowled, but followed it up with another caught and bowled to get the penultimate wicket. We were back on top. An over later the last wickets fell and IndCan registered it's first victory in Okanagan by 54 runs.

Man of the match - Sudipta M. for scoring 54 runs.

Sunday 24 April 2016

Match report - Indcan II Vs West Van V @Hugo Ray 24 April 2016 - By Omkar S.

Under perfect swinging conditions, we started our 2016 season at Hugo Ray. After losing the toss Ganesh started the match with a perfect wicket maiden. It was an excellent bowling performance from then on to restrict them for just 83 runs. Ganesh lead the attack with 5 wickets and later Karthikeyan spun the web around them grabbing 3 more wickets. There was some rustiness on the field and in spite of good ground fielding and an excellent run-out by Robin we dropped 6 catches. Abhinav bowled a brilliant spell giving just 9 runs in 6 overs and didn't let their batsman off the hook.

Batting didn't start well with fall of regular wickets until Sanjay and I tried to stabilize but I couldn't hold the fort longer in an attempt to see off their best bowler. Sanjay Patankar then hit their spinners out of the park scoring quick 29 before he too was caught on the boundary.

The match still went close but regular wickets didn't help our cause and the saviour from the other day (our beloved coach, Karthikeyan P) was left stranded on the other end.

Losing the first match of the season by 8 runs wasn't the start expected but all in all a good fair game of cricket. Hope we all learn from this game and improve.

Man of the match - Karthikeyan and Ganesh D.