Business End of the tournament

As the Miinor League heats up and all teams start assessing their standing in this season, Veterans Memorial Park offered the perfect setting to showcase our skills. A bowling friendly pitch made sure our batting skills were tested to the limits. The Philadelphians performance this season has been topsy turvy and we really weren’t able to catch hold of a string of victories. The batting has delivered throughout the tournament but our bowling unit has blown hot and cold. So, the pitch in Veterans Memorial Park and what it had to offer for our bowlers came as a great relief and a golden opportunity to regain the confidence of our bowling unit. With cautious hope and optimism, our unit got ready for the two crucial games against DC Hawks on 23rd and 24th. A lot was at stake for us as the events unfolded pretty dramatically.

A Bowling Paradise

Things were pretty clear the moment we entered the ground as the pitch offered plenty of lateral movement for our fast bowlers. And boy, did our boys make the most of it. In the first encounter, DC Hawks won the toss and elected to bat, a decision that baffled a lot of pundits. Disaster struck early for them as Drysdale used the pitch to good effect to dismiss Narvekar. Liam Plunkett, together with Drysdale, launched a double barrel attack dismissing Sohal. With both openers out early, a panic contagion set in DC Hawks batting line up as the wickets started tumbling with Drysdale ripping the batting line up apart. Half the DC Hawks side was dismissed with their score being 74. Drysdale went on to scalp 4 wickets. Jaskaran Malhotra offered some resistance with his 36 runs until he was dismissed by the wily Liam Plunkett who would later be judged Man of the Match for the crucial scalp. Jaskaran's wicket knocked the wind out of DC Hawks batting line up. They collapsed for an under par 96. Not the score that they would have been happy with going into the dressing room.

Although we were cognizant of the nature of the pitch, we hoped to start off cautiously. Flamboyant Abdullah syed and Rampersaud went early as we were reduced to 8/2 in the first 2 overs. The crisis man Chiranshu Bhatia tried to stem the decline with his 24 ball resistance scoring 14 runs. But Chiru succumbled to a beautiful delivery by Ladda. Halfway through the innings, we were reduced to 45/4 with the match was well and truly in the balance with both sides looking for an opening that they can exploit. The lower middle order has always delivered this season for us and sure enough, they did it once again. Milind Kumar and Jonathan Foo dashed all hopes for DC Hawks by stringing a vital partnership that got us closer to victory. As we had one foot in the door, Milind fell as the pressure mounted on the lower order batsman. Jonathan Foo held fort at one end as he saw his team mates fall one after another. Jonathan Foo didn’t let his nerve get the better of him till the very end as he took the The Philadelphians to safety by helping us cross over the line in the very last over and with a wicket to spare. We took a lot of heart from the first encounter. But we were also acutely aware of the vulnerabilities that we had going into the second match

The second encounter started off on a similar note with DC Hawks winning the toss and electing to bat. A bold decision given what had happened the previous day. This time, DC

Hawks batting unit came well prepared to deal with all eventualities. The openers didn’t let our bowlers breakthrough by making a crucial 60 run partnership. Averting any collapse, DC Hawks batsmen played cautiously until Bipul Sharma delivered a final flourish taking them to 156/4 in their 20 overs. The batting woes of the previous game came to fore once again as we lost too many early wickets. Half the side was dismissed for a paltry score of 32 as we lost all top order batsman. The match was well and truly over as Liam Plunkett managed to salvage some pride for the Philadelphians with his 37 runs off 39 balls. With no notable contributions from our batsman, The Philadelphians collapsed scoring only 96 runs.

Much to ponder

The inconsistency in our performance remains our concern as we head to the final phase of this season. The batting has fallen short of expectations but our bowling unit has regained a lot of confidence and is looking upbeat for the subsequent games. Credit goes to the Coaches and Support Staff for keeping the team in high spirits through the ups and downs of every game. The strategies adopted on the field have been really good in restricting the batsman. We have much to ponder and also a lot of positives going forward as we give a final push in the last few games of the Minor League Tournament.

Go, Philly!!