Milton II lost the toss and was put in to field. Milton II went into the match with 7 bowlers this time and there was a bit of green here and there.
For Milton II, it was a great start with the bowl and Puneet removed the captain in the very second over of his spell and then followed by another wicket in his first five over spell. Puneet was very well supported by Madhu who bowled brilliantly by bowling 4 maiden overs and taking a wicket in the first spell (7 overs 11 runs), however the death overs were not up to his mark. He ended up conceding 19 runs in the last 3 overs.
1st change – Sandeep also showed his skills by bowling really tight. He got his first wicket for Milton and bowled really well. In his 4 overs spell he conceded only 5 runs.
Mallikarjun on the other end starting threatening the batsmen with nice out swings, but unfortunately his good bowling was shadowed by few wide balls. In his 5 over spell, he ended up conceding 22 runs.
What looked like a match for Milton II in the first 12 overs with 15/4 slowly started moving away. Nick & Eli hold their nerves and starting settling down slowly. End of 20 overs, they seem to completely settled until Mahanth’s second over scored Nick’s wicket. Luke then joined and scored some lusty shots taking the score from 70/5 to 123/6.
Mahanth’s decision to bowl Chris in the death overs along with Madhu did not work well and Chris ended up conceding 24 runs in his 3 overs. Maltesh bowled the last over very tight taking a wicket. The score at the end of innings was 152 and we required 153 runs to win this match.
The star bowlers for this match were Madhu and Puneet taking 2 wickets each.
Batting:
It all looked well and Bob and Chris opened the bat, but soon after scoring the boundary, Chris was given LBW. From then the wickets starting tumbling one after the other. Sreejith and Maltesh were bowled with each scoring a single digit numbers. Dave tried to drive the bowl past the point and ended up giving an easy catch at the point.
Mahanth joined Bob and they looked ok for a while. Bob was holding one end and rotating the strike nicely but that didn’t last long and Bob was given LBW after scoring 33. Bob was the highest scorer. Puneet joined Mahanth and before these two could settle down, the captain threw away his wicket by pulling a shot in between mid wicket and mid on. Rig joined Puneet and steadied the ship for a while. At this point, it looked like we were cruising towards the victory, but they two succumbed to run outs because of the asking run rate was growing higher.
Then it was just a cake walk for the bowlers, Madhu, Mallikarjun and Sandeep could not do any magic as the equation was 23 runs required of 12 balls. Mallikarjun remained not out.
Thereafter, Milton II were disappointed by this great loss.
Full Scorecard available at http://miltoncambs.play-cricket.com/view_results_details?id=11921937
Report by Mahanth