RPICC vs. CCCC
- Match report by Aravind V
It was another sweltering summer day, and RPI successfully defended its unbeaten record at home today with a convincing win over Colchester county CC. Unable to make it to Syracuse due to last minute pull outs and silly match timing by the Syracuse folks, Aravind. S worked his PR magic to get CCCC over at short notice. And thank you CCCC, it was awesome of you guys.
Electing to bat after winning the toss, CCCC lost two early wickets as Ronnie went on a rampage and took wickets of consecutive balls in his maiden over. but CCCC than recovered well and were on the verge of a big partnership when Aravind. V snapped a sharp diving catch, inches of the turf, at gully to break the partnership. As has been the case in the last few matches, spin once again worked, and Kaustub, Aravind. V and Adnan applied the breaks. The fielding was superb and Rahul and Ronnie held their outfield catches well to keep the scoring under check. Still, CCCC was never in any big trouble, and played very well to finish at 256 in their quota of 35 overs. Surely a competitive total on this track.
RPICC lost Aravind. S early to a yes-and-no mess, but Ronnie blasted some 6 sweet boundaries in his brief but brilliant 28, to set the pace for the rest of the innings. Ravi played his usual big hitting knock and milked the bowling for 62 runs before he was caught behind fishing way outside the offstump. But that is only to be expected of him! 2 quick wickets didn’t seem to bother Rahul and Rishi as they went about the business of sending the ball to the fence with effortless ease, and the scoring rate stayed at 10 an over, till near the very end. The boys in the middle now wanted some fun, and also their fifties, and aided by the scorer and the cheering teammates, they carefully divided the few remaining runs between themselves, much to the annoyance of the CCCC players. Rahul finished the formalities with a cover drive to the fence
In all, it was a fun and satisfying game. The trick of feeding the opponents pizza to slow them down worked and RPICC express is on the roll once more. Next stop: Columbia university, NY