Monsoon Cricket Hungama begins at IDC

When Microsoft's India Development Centre moved to a new campus in Jan 2005, a lot of us took pride in having the plush green MCG (Microsoft Cricket Ground) as a part of the campus. We all knew, that one day we would all be in for a good game. The day was to be. One of those days was today.

Date - 14th July,2005

Event - Monsoon Cricket Hungama

Venue - MCG, Microsoft Hyderabad Campus

Teams - DevTool Devils (DevTools group - my team) Vs 11 Ups (Infrastructure Services)

As is said, cricket is a very funny game. In a knockout tournament with 19 teams participating, ours was the second match to be played. The first match was a low scoring one with the side fielding first needing to chase a target of 20 runs to win from 12 overs.So we thought this is going to be a low scoring match as conditions did not seem to be favoring the batsmen. Boy, was I to be proved wrong.

We had everything in the match that one can expect. Won the toss and elected to bat. We were crawling at 25/0 at the end of 5 overs in a 12 over limited match. Ashwin and Pratap were doing a great job to sustain their wickets but all started feeling that the run rate was way behind the targetted one. Come the 6th over and Pratap let loose. He hit some splendid shots out of the ground. While trying to step up Ashwin paved way for Varun who then gave way for Sushant. Both Varun and Sushant made sure that apart from giving support to Pratap who was playing all the more better from the other end they kept rotating the strike. Sushant hit some fabulous Sixes (I presume around 6) towards the end to get us home with a score of 121/2 at the end of the stipulated 12 overs.

We were happy about the score that we had put up for the opponents to chase. Apart from the batsmen the credit also goes to all the DevTools team members who were down there shouting slogans like "Jitega bhai Jitega - DevTools Jitega" (DevTools shall win) and cheering up the batsmen.

After a break of 15mins the 11 Ups came out to bat. DevTools was riding high on confidence. The left-right combination that came in to bat started posing a few problems for our bowlers. We had already given 30+ runs in the first 3 overs and the match looked to be equally poised, or rather more in favor of the 11 Ups. Thier openenrs were doing a good job to keep up the scoring rate.An intresting stage was set till the 6th over, when the match looked equally poised. But at that point the DevTool Devils clutched them hard. Bowlers bowled some tight full length overs. Fielders did a good job of making sure we restrict them and not let them steal away singles. By the 7th over when their first wicket fell, thanks to a splendid catch by Sunny at long-on, the needed run rate had increased tremendously. Beyond that it was just a formality as it's always difficult to keep up with the ever increasing run rates. The 11 Ups ended with 97/4 in the stipulated 12 overs with the DevDiv devils not letting a single Four being hit. There is no one who can stop the Sixers ofcourse :)

Pratap was adjudged the man of the match. We were a contended team at the end of the day.

Keep it up everybody

. Its splendid to be a part of the DevTools family at IDC. Lets rock in the next match too. [:D]