Kamal Bowling

On March 13th, Oregon Cricket Club Eugene started the 2010 season hosting our friends Multnomah Cricket Club from Portland in a social match under lights. The NeXturf Field on the university’s campus provided an excellent venue for good cricket, great food and lots of fun. While the weather was brisk, the pitch was dry and played true. It turned out to be an excellent night for 20/20 cricket, despite the typical weather of the season.

OCCE won the toss and elected to bat first. Openers Sohan Akolkar and Mike Partridge faced real movement from MCC’s opening attack. MCC spearhead Ephrim Bruno put Mike under particular pressure with impressive inswing bowling. After some early scratchiness, Mike was able to blast two boundaries before he scooped a lofted delivery from Daniel Mundra immediately after the sledging began. MCC’s Brett Windsor noted with alacrity that as soon as the sledging started, wickets fell. It was a hard lesson in the even harder school of being opening batsman.

As the innings wore on, OCCE found the groove and the boundaries began to flow more freely. Wicketkeeper batsman Jim Cleavenger and Captain Kamal Thangarasa came into the innings for OCCE with a big-hitting reputation and proceeded to build on it. Boundaries became routine for this partnership and the enthusiasm and class that these two brought to the match was tremendous. Nirmal Raj, John Bellona, Titu Datta, Gentle Anderson and Brandon Lee rounded-out the batting for OCCE to build an impressive 20-over total to 202.

The innings break provided a great opportunity to have a proper cricket tea which included scones and cucumber sandwiches, provided by OCCE’s own cricket mum, Andrea Voorhees. It was a delight to have such good food and company to start our 2010 cricket season. Please have a look at the slideshow posted on our Pictures tab here.

MCC began their run-chase facing the heat of OCCE’s own Skipper Kamal and new pace recruit, Gentle Anderson. This duo provided some of the most electrifying fast bowling seen in Oregon: it was an awesome sight. As Australian pace bowler Mitchell Johnson recently said “I wouldn’t want to face us” – we in Eugene know what he means! We are very proud of our bowling unit and they lived up to their billing in outstanding fashion. OCCE’s line and length master Nirmal Raj bagged four wickets and claimed it was the greatest day he has had since living in the United States. OCCE’s tight fielding, incredible catches and top-drawer teamwork put MCC under pressure from the very start. While Ephrim Bruno, Subappa Sharma, Nish Parikh and Brett Windsor did their buccaneering best to hammer-out the runs, in the end they managed a final total of 174. Oregon Cricket Club Eugene was supremely stoked to have won its first match of the season, but even more delighted to see our good friends and make some new cricket buddies in Multnomah Cricket Club. MCC’s emphasis on fun, inclusion and great cricket has been a stellar example to us here in Eugene. OCCE will travel to Gresham tomorrow, April 17th, to face MCC at John Deere Field in our first away game of the season. In a 35-over match Oregon Cricket Club Eugene is preparing to blood new players and extend our unbeaten 2010 record. We look forward to reporting yet another success on the pitch for cricket in Oregon.

Saturday, March 20th, newly formed team PunjabX1 Cricket Club came to Eugene to play Oregon Cricket Club Eugene. In a very close game, OCCE and PunjabX1 CC scored 171 and we played a “super over” to decide the game. OCCE managed to smash 18 runs of their over and PunjabX1 were held to only 7 runs giving OCCE their second victory of the season.

Match highlights included OCCE’s captain, Kamal Thangarasa, continuing his brilliant form with the bat by scoring a team high of 48 and then taking two wickets in the first over of PunjabX1 CC’s run chase. OCCE’s fine opener Sohan Akolkar gave good support to Kamal with a great knock of 27 and he also took two big wickets one which tied the game sending it into the super over. OCCE’s Mohammad Abbasi and Madhu Gudur also provided quick fire knocks of 21 and 23 sending OCCE’s total score to 171/8. For PunjabX1 CC, a solid all-round performance from John Batish who took 5 wickets to derail OCCE’s chance of a high score and he also steadied PunjabX1 CC’s run chase with a opening knock of 31. Rohi brought PunjabX1 to the cusp of winning with a knock of 54 not out, but in the end great plays from both teams led to tied game and both teams agreed to play a “super over” to decide the tie.

OCCE batted first with the pair of Kamal Thangasara and Mohammad Abbasi, and they faced Naveen Kumar. Even with an injury Kamal hit 2 fours and a six and at the end of the over OCCE had 18 runs. Given the task of making 19 runs to win the game PunjabX1 CC sent in Ravi Moudgil and Sumeet Kumar to face Gentle Anderson. With some very tight bowling Gentle held the pair to only 7 runs and on the last ball he also bagged Sumeet Kumar with an excellent catch from Sohan Akolkar to conclude a very exciting game.

We want to thank PunjabX1 CC for hard fought and very competitive game. We hope to play them in the future again and we wish them in good luck for the upcoming OCL tournament.

A full match report with scores and photo galleries is forthcoming. Next OCCE heads North to play MCC at John Deere Field on April 17th.

- Daniel Mundra