After overwhelmingly won the first game the whole team is geared up for the match against ISU Cardinals and started from Des Moines in the morning with lot of self belief and confidence. As usual the team reached Ames well in advance and eagerly looking forward to start the game. Our captain Prakash and the Cardinals captain went for the toss and again the luck is favorable for us and won the toss, without any hesitation captain and vice captain decided and opted to bat first because of the formidable batting line up.

First Innings: Elite CC batting

Debutant Nitin and Srini opened the innings cautiously and played with plenty of patience. Srini went for a big shot and unfortunately couldn’t hit it cleanly and end up in giving a regulation catch to the keeper. Hari stepped in one down and as soon as reached crease immediately hit a classic cover drive that fetched 2 runs. When both are trying to accelerate the scoring rate Nitin got out for LBW. He made 6 runs. In the meanwhile Next inform batsman Prakash came in to steady the innings and apparently Hari is deceived by the slower ball and gave a simple catch to the keeper. Sudhir joined with Prakash and both played responsible innings in picking singles and doubles regularly and punishing the loose balls, built a solid partnership and improved scoring rate. When things are going pretty well Prakash was ran out and made 14 runs, next much anticipated dashing batsman Krishna walked in to bludgeon the innings and the players

are pushed to the boundary line to restrict the flow of runs. His powerful drives and shots

Penetrated the fielding set up and able to fetch 2s and 4s and also he hit a massive six on the leg side made a vital contribution of 27 runs and cleverly supported by sudhir (10 runs). Saravie and Jawahar carried the momentum and made significant contributions to the total. Both of them scored 9 runs respectively. Finally our young and dynamic Srikanth played some exuberant and electrifying shots in no time that fetched vital 18 runs which is invaluable to the team total. At the end of 30 overs Elite CC team is well poised and made 148 runs on the board. A healthy competitive total to the opponent team. 

A new ball has taken by the captain Prakash and asked their frontline bowlers to do the rest. In response Krishna and Saravanan chose the appropriate end to bowl and bowled good line and length in tandem and that kept the opening batsman Usman and Kamal restrained from swinging their willow freely. This tight line and length built the pressure on the batsman and spoiled their strategies that resulted in chaos. Saravanan took the first wicket of captain Usman out for 6 runs brilliantly caught by srikanth in the mid off corridor. In the next over Krishna took the wicket of Kamal caught by keeper Srini. At the time Host team scorecard read 19 for 2 in six overs looks like in the back foot. Kaleel and Sarath played some gritty innings but didn’t last longer. Krishna with genuine face got the wicket of Kaleel again caught by keeper Srini. Ankush joined with Sarath before he scored any run on the board, couples of catches are dropped on the slip area and that resulted in building substantial partnership between them. Srikanth and Prakash started their spell bowled beautifully and kept the batsman intact and dried up the runs on either side of the wicket. After close LBW decision turned down in the previous ball, Prakash bowled a yorker to danger man Sarath and he is clueless and ball shuffled the furniture. The next batsman Ankush got a life when he is on 0 and contributed some pivotal runs (30 highest score) to their team. In meanwhile Prakash got another ISU wicket in his spell. It is almost middle of the innings and the host team is still gave a spirited fight and our vice captain Sudheer bowled the 15 over of the innings looking for a break before the drinks. Strategy paid off and Sudheer bowled an unbelievable ‘Doosra’ to the well set batsman Adeel loosed his off stump and gave an important breakthrough to the team and moreover that is the downfall of the batting team. Saravie bowled gentle medium pace and took the key wicket of vikram.

Saravie and Krishna bowled fiery spell to the lower order batsman and grabbed

As many as wickets at regular intervals and finally the host team was all out for 138 runs. 

The men who made the difference in the game:

Elites:

Krishna (28 runs and 4 wickets) – Awesome hitting with 4 sixes

Shrikanth (attacking 18 runs and some gritty bowling

Prakash (2 wickets)

ISU Cardinals:

Sarath (19 runs)

Ankush (30 runs)