Match report vs. Andhra Cricket
We've played first of the one-day games vs Andhra. Andhra won the toss and decided to bowl on a fresh wicket. It was the right decision as the ball moved all over the place and had us in trouble early with Raki and Jimmy back early in the inning.
Rachin and Lauchie fought hard on the pitch. Lauchie was unlucky to be ruled out as the ball brushed the pads on its way to the keeper. Rachin and Lauchie put together 37 runs partnership for the 3rd wicket. Rachin kept the strike ticking over with Jesse giving a great hand. Rachin and Jesse dug us out of trouble with a 88 runs partnership for the 4th wicket before Rachin was ruled LBW while paddling the ball.
Enter Troy and the game turned on its head. It was not all that easy for Troy, At one point in time he had 2 runs against his name after facing 22 balls. Once he decided he wanted to go at it, he did that amazingly mixing brutal hitting with deft paddles to spinners and seamers.
Thanks to Rachin 62(86), Jesse 68(98) and Troy 62(53) we posted a very good score on the board 260/8 after 50 overs.
Andhra's bowling particularly the seamers bowled great areas and moved the ball prodigiously early in the inning.
With bowling we had the Andhra team on the ropes with good breakthroughs frequently. We had them at some point in time 88 for 6 after 21 overs. That said the Andhra team continue to fight and put a massive partnership for the 8th wicket of 72 runs. Even then we had massive upper hand. When their 9th wicket fell for 211 after 45.2 overs it was as good as the game was over. But their no.11 had other ideas and put our attack to sword. They needed 31 off 3 overs with one wicket in hand but the 47th over they took 21 off it followed by 8 more in the next over.
The last over was outstanding as well, they pushed one to mid on and ran a risky single. Troy took a shy at the non-striker and the ball missed the stumps unfortunately for us. That sealed the game for them. Overall an amazing game and the way Andhra turned the game around even when they were looking down the barrel is something we can learn from. They never ever gave up the chase.
Felix has continued his excellent form with the ball picking up 2 for 22 off 10. Luke although went for runs in his last but one over did well overall picking up 4 for 51. We could have gone with other bowlers that are good at the death but this tour is about providing different challenges to all the players. Keeping that in mind we are achieving our objectives during the off-season.
The scorecard of the exhilarating game is at
https://www.crichq.com/matches/657119/2nd_innings