RPI Cricket Club vs. Colchester County Cricket Club, Warren, VT. July 7, 2001

- Kishore Ramachandran (making his debut as team correspondent)

After the recently concluded CCL tournament, we are now in the middle of the cricket season this 

year. The champs having won the tournament with great panache had played an away game against    

MIT on 23rd and Tricity on 30th. Hampered by the loss of our leading players and a frustrating and 

disappointing last-minute pullout, we lost the games to MIT and Tricity.

This weekend, we were again on the road. We were to play the Colchester County Cricket Club, up 

in Vermont. These guys had a decent cricket team but they had some league cricketers from the west 

coast who strengthened their cause to no end. Anurag could not play this weekend because of a 

personal mishap but he was there at the Union at 8am on a Saturday morning to check out whether 

everything was going as planned. Just goes to show how committed he is to the cause of cricket at 

RPI. He gave the lame excuse that he was there to withdraw some money, which none of us bought.

I bet if one of our players hadn't turned up, he would have come with us to play the game!!

The drive was wonderful, through the mountains of Vermont, very picturesque. We reached there at 

12 and then started the game at 1pm. It was a very beautiful ground with mountains on all sides. We 

lost the toss and they wanted us to bat. We would have done the same because the pitch was still 

damp and the ball was keeping low. Our opening pair of Ronnie and Aravind S. batted well and put 

on a wonderful partnership at a healthy run-rate of 6/over. The opposition bowlers who maintained 

absolutely no discipline in the way they bowled helped them to no end. The way these two were going, 

Adnan (no. 10) and me (no. 11) were thinking about taking a nap till our batting got over! But our 

middle order, which was filled with good batsmen, failed to capitalize on the good start. 

Ronnie was the first to go when he tried to hit a ball over the head of mid-off. He failed to clear and

 got out after a well-made 39. Zohair came into bat and immediately got going with a couple of the first 

ball he faced. As usual, he looked in fine form and his wicket was against the run of play. He was 

looking to play over the top of point but checked his shot at the last moment to give an easy catch to 

fielder at backward point, Pramod. He had just hit two beautiful boundaries during his brief but 

entertaining tenure at the crease. In came Rishi and we were all anticipating the run-rate to pick up. But 

he too fell trying to go for his shots too soon. 

Sairam, like Zohair got out after he was set. Incidentally, he gave a catch to the same fielder, Amit, but

this time at mid-off. Tushar, Aravind, Pranit, Adnan and yours truly did a good job of accelerating in 

the final overs but we could only manage a score of 209 when a score of 250 looked easily possible at 

the halfway stage. The captain, Aravind S., played the sheet-anchor role to perfection but I felt that he 

should have rotated the strike more often and accelerated once the spinners were brought in. He made 

a patient 51 before he got out.

Then it was our turn to bowl and we bowled well. The wicket had dried out because of the beautiful 

warm weather and the pitch started to take spin. Our opening bowlers, Aravind S. and Zohair, 

couldn't get the breakthrough. Their opening batsmen, Amit and Chris played well with the latter being

more aggressive. He punished anything short and they were going really well. Our first change bowler, 

Ronnie bowled wonderfully well and got the opening wicket, of Chris. Spin was introduced in the form 

of Pranit and Aravind V. Almost immediately, their batsmen struggled, as they did notmove their feet. 

They played the ball from the crease and had no clue on many occasions. However, even though our 

spin bowlers bowled 5 good balls, they bowled one bad ball, which was usually a full toss that was hit 

for four and the opposition was always in with a chance. Aravind V. picked up the wicket of Amit 

who was looking dangerous and Pranit picked up the wicket of Rajeev after yours truly took a reflex-

catch at short-cover. They brought the run-rate down to almost a trickle in between them and we 

looked to be on top. But their batsman, Suresh played a gem of an innings to keep them alive. But he 

as beautifully dismissed by Ronnie who came back to produce a snorter of a delivery of the very first 

ball of his second spell. He got one to pitch on off stump and move slightly away from the batsmen. It 

was pitched on good length, the batsmen went for the drive through the covers, didn't get his front foot 

out enough and nicked it for the keeper, Sairam to do the needful behind the stumps and CCCC 

looked to be in trouble. But the match was far from over and requiring 10 runs of the final over, their 

captain hit two fours of the last two balls. Add that to the single they had previously taken in the same 

over and they had tied the game. Ironically, it was Ronnie who bowled the last over. We were all 

disappointed but it was a wonderful game of cricket. Kudos to their captain who kept going even 

though they needed more than 7.5 runs an over. 

On our way back, our captain was driving and we listened to his favorite song tanha-tanha atleast a 

thousand times!! Thank god we got back safely because Urmila Matondkar seemed to be constantly 

on his mind!:)))

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