July 5th and 6th report

We played 4 matches last weekend ( Saturday and Sunday) including our second /last league match of the tournament. Saturday, we played against our regular opponents and as part of sharing the team members across the two teams, Vinay and Satish played against us. One of the highlights on Saturday was Satish scoring yet another 50. He is making this as a habit which augurs well for our team batting.
Still, I would say we failed to put up a huge total on Sunday where we played against Puma in our second and final league match of the tournament. Though, Satish is in his prime form with  the bat, got out in the very first ball of the match. With his current form he has set up a high expectation, I think it is too much to expect from this guy in every match. After that initial hiccup I think we recovered well by adding 45 runs in 6 overs. I thought Preetish and I batted sensibly to carry the innings. we failed to accelerate the rate from 6th to 10th over. Ideally we should have doubled the score in the remaining 4 overs which would have taken our score to around 90 runs but we ended up scoring 76 runs that too with the help of Ilan and Arjun. Though we felt we were 10-15 runs short on that pitch, it was actually a challenging total considering the bowling power we have and we took the match till the last over. during our bowling also we were controlling the things till the end of 6th over. They(Puma) needed to score 44 runs in last 4 overs. In the next 2 overs ( 7th and 8th ) they scored 33 runs and looked to complete the target in the 9th over itself. Rana provided one more twist by bowling one of the best overs of the match by giving just a single run which again swung the balance in our side. This situation lead us into the last over of the match where the opposition still needed to score 10 runs. I think I made a mistake by giving the ball to Arjun instead of Ilan. No doubt Arjun is a fantastic bowler and he bowled well for us in the earlier matches but on that day he was a bit disturbed and was not at his best. Also, Ilan looked in good touch and bowled well in his previous over. Still, I gave the ball to Arjun hoping that he will win the match for us. He proved me wrong and again he got disturbed by the batsman who hit 2 sixers to clinch the match for his side. We lost one more close match! I still think we will make into the knockout stage of the main cup as we maintain healthy net run rate compare to other two teams in our group.

Turning Points: We did not bat well from 6th over onwards where we needed more runs to put up a big total and while bowling also we lost during the same time ( 6th to 10th overs) where we gave away 44 runs.

Overall, there are lot of positives we can take from this match and also I hope we will learn from our mistakes to improve and perform better in our future matches.

For the detailed scoreboard, please click here.
 

June 28th Report

Last Saturday we played 3 matches and won the series 2-1. I think we lost the first match after having the game in our hand. After losing the toss, we were asked to bowl first and we bowled out the opposition team for only 40 runs  We messed it up while chasing this small total and bundled out for only 32 runs, conceding the opposition a lead 1-0. We came back strongly and won the next 2 matches to clinch the series 2-1. As usual bowlers did a wonderful job. Most of us wanted to mix up the players from both the teams and we did this last week to an extent. Rana and Kiran played against us! We should continue to mix the players especially bowlers so that the batsmen from both teams get opportunity to play against all the bowlers and similarly bowlers also get an opportunity to bowl at different batters.

This week I thought of sharing some perspectives on “Team”. When we mean team, it could just be  the “group” we are playing for that comes to our mind – which is very natural. However, my reference to “Team” here is about the associations that we all intend to make – during successes and failures.

Per popular sayings “ Success  has many fathers, and failures  has none” , I think the corollary is rather a stronger truth! What I mean by this is – when we are successful, others folk to us, and we feel good about it. When we fail at something, we will go after those who are not so successful and embrace them as our ‘friends’!

Let us say we set out on a goal to reduce weight or enjoy a movie – which are both positives that we would have taken from some of the successful people around us. When we are through this journey of either reducing weight after a few days or post the three hours of movie, we come out and feel we did not achieve our objectives! Immediately, we not only find reasons for being unsuccessful, but also start to ‘seek out´ to those in our circles who have similar viewpoints.

In the case of losing weight we will not only justify with those who have not been successful, we will start adding reasons why it had happened and start making new friends of similar ilk. We even go to the extent of liking them, and making them as best buddies! On the movies front, we will start reading more critics reviews that share our views, so we feel happy about the fact we are not alone.

The issue with the above mental state is that we will develop this as a habit, whenever we do not get to the goal we need to reach – and it becomes a whirlpool of negative thoughts and state of mind. So, it is important for us to give importance to even smaller events that may creep into our minds about the negative thoughts that may not only stem from others influence, but also from our makings.

So, when next time we do not lose weight or do not enjoy a movie, try it once again, or continue to speak to those who have been successful J