Its now six days since we played our first league game. Despite our very good preparation, enthusiasm and confidence we started the season with a loss.
Numbers as objective as they are, out of their context, they may at times convey a wrong impression. Particularly, when we try to reduce a complex phenomenon to one dimensional quantification. For instance, in this case of our loss by three wickets, numbers may suggest that we played a very tight game which could have gone either way.
The match was pretty one-sided from the time of the drinks break of the Pak-Freiburg's inning. We gave them a modest target of 144 runs in 40 overs. At the end of 20 overs Pak-Freiburg were about 73 runs with a loss of 3 or 4 wickets. Even though we took a couple of quick wickets after the drinks break, it was not enough.
Din and Rizwan for most of their time on the pitch just showed a dead-bat to the balls and essentially killed the game for us. Our bowlers, particularly myself, struggled to get past the bats of Din and Rizwan. They could enjoy that luxury of batting like they did because the required run rate was never a real concern. They need some 3-4 runs an over if they could bat through the 40 overs. If we add to this the fact that at our level, most of our bowlers, on average concede ~1.5 extra runs (wides, mainly) per over, the effective run rate for the opposition was around two an over.
For us the only chance to save the game was to bowl our the opposition. None of our bowlers look like doing that, Sagir, and Rajesh showed some promise by taking a few wickets. But we lacked a penetrative power in our bowling. We all were bowling very monotonous. There was not much to test the batting. If we were defending a score of 180 runs or so perhaps our bowling would have been sufficient. But with no pressure to maintain the run rate the batsmen never need to take any risk.
After the match I thought hard to isolate reasons for loss. All I could come up is rather trivial -- we lacked a good score on the board. With some 30 more runs on the board, same bowlers would have appeared to be doing the job right.
I am not defending the bowlers, just because I am one. In fact, I am first to blame myself. The three wicket difference between the two teams is actually my share of wickets. If I had taken a couple, we would have put up a better show and the tone of this post would have been very different.
Finally, it maybe just me but I somehow got the impression that we were in some sort of panic all through the match. I cite two examples. First, in so many years of cricket, against easy and tough teams, in important and irrelevant matches, I have never been a part of a team meeting (team talk) in the drinks break of the first inning while we were batting first. Second, after the drinks break when we were bowling, none of the bowlers bowled in a proper spell. Bowlers, need time sometime, particularly when their bowling is not along the expectations. None of our bowlers, myself, Sagir or Rajesh bowled more than one over spell in post drinks session.
To what extent this panic contributed to our loss cannot be quantified, as a bowler I share the responsibility of the lack of penetrative power in the bowling. But the batsmen have a big task ahead of them in this league. We cannot imagine to win many matched with scores of ~150 in 40 overs.
The great thing about the game was that it ended in more or less harmony with the Pak-Freiburg team. I think it was an achievement of sorts.
PS: The match started with a perfect 'desi' style of management. The umpires (neutral ones, provided by the league and cost us Euros 25 per team) failed to show up. I am sure that German Railways or google-maps were not responsible for this. The icing on the cake was that the main coordinator of the league does not like to take phone calls on a Sunday. Imagine this and add to this the fact that the guy is from Pakistan. After half an hour of aimless discussion it was agreed that both teams will nominate a couple of players from both the teams to do umpiring.
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