Marching into the Knockouts!

KölnCC has comprehensively won its fifth and last league stage match. On 5th June, KölnCC played against Challenger CC at chorweiler. Batting first KölnCC managed a modest total of 173/10. Then the bowlers did superb job once again to restrict a bit defiant Challengers for 143.

As usual Satya and Shrishail opened the innings for KölnCC. The duo gave a steady start, with Satya playing his shots and taking on the bowlers while Shrishail looked solid at the other end. They both got nice starts but were dismissed in their 20s. Then one down batsman Sachin and Jagdish tried to built a partnership but Sachin soon perished to a short ball from the spinner. Gaurav too got early while trying to dominate the bowling. Then came the experienced Irfan Ahmed. Jagdish and Irfan steadied the ship for KölnCC. They both maintained an excellent balance between attack and defence. Jagdish scored 48 and Irfan contributed 46 runs. The partnership was indeed a major contribution in the win. The team looked good and 230 was easily getable but the collapse of lower order batsmen restricted the target below 180.

Challengers began their chase cautiously. Owing to the fact that they lost one of their opener in the very first over, where Appu clean bowled the south paw with a brilliant delivery. Both Appu and Irfan maintained solid lines, hardly giving anything away. The Challengers could harldy score 50 runs in their first 25 overs. Eventhough the runrate was low, Challengers had wickets in their hands. Challengers quite cleverly played out the wicket taking bowler Jimit Patel’s spell of KölnCC. Then, Satya who usually keeps the wicket was asked to bowl by the captain. And the trick worked. Apart from few wides, he bowled intelligently for his 4 wickets. Challengers as their name did offer some resistance. Challenger’s middle order wicket-keeper batsman Siddharth played extremely patient innings. He reached his fifty. But the pressure was increasing on him as he was running out of his partners.

Suddenly when the 9th wicket partnership was looking good, lack of awareness from Challengers costed them their 9th wicket. A ball was stopped before the roped at fine leg, batsmen thinking it as a boundary were standing in the middle of the pitch. The well aware fielders of KölnCC took the opportunity to run out one of the batsman. Then again the formality of taking the last wicket was done by Satya. This time with no hassle, the batsman was caught in the slips by Gaurav. Thus handing a 30 run victory to KölnCC.

With 5-0 win/loss record at league stage, KölnCC has marched into the knockout stage. Let’s hope the resurgent team continues it performance in the knockouts.