Feelings justified- Rohit Taneja

Frustration

It is a feeling which you get when you take Rishi (worth 100 points) in your Super Selector team & he gives you 24 points in return.

Pressure

It’s feeling which Gaurav Puri gets when people remind him that he is worth 120 points

Insecurity

It’s a feeling which Kunj got when Shakey(Abhishek Parmeshwaram) was tried for an opening slot & he responded with a thunderous century proclaiming end of run drought.

Self Respect

It’s a feeling which Nimish got when he took a 5 wicket haul & scored 40 runs from the bat.

Hesitation

It’s a feeling which Neeraj Narayanan gets when he goes to Ankit tiwari to tell him, “ Kosal is playing today. You’ll have to sit out”.

Disappointment

It’s a feeling which Radhul Gadi got when Taneja got out for 30 & his 5 more runs could have given lot more points to Gadi

Pride

It’s a feeling Ritika got when all her 80 pointer players (Ashutosh, abhishek P , Sunder , Twinky ) paid rich divendends catapulting her to the 3^nd position in Super Selector.

Amazement

It’s a feeling I got when I came to know that Richa Kapoor , Nakul Sood and Ashish Rao have exactly the same MCL super selector team. What a coincidence J

Disgust

It’s a feeling which Arpeet gets when his team drops catches of the opposite team players , with the expected result along the lines of , “Catches win matches”

MCL Super Selector- Leaderboard

3 stunning days, 3 awesome matches and we had some new heroes emerging in the tournament. The pick of the players were:

1. Abhishek P (Apna Scammie) (296 points)
2. Nimish (270 points)
3. Nakul Sud (150 points)
4. Arpeet (134 points)

Did you have them in your MCL-SS Team??

The top 3 on the new Leaderboard is as follows:

1. SlobberKnocker - 1273 (Arpeet)
2. Quizaas - 1149 (Sujeet)
3. Fireball - 1106 (Ritika)

It happened once in MICA - Neeraj Narayanan

On the 30th of October 1974, Nolan Ryan pitched the fastest baseball pitch ever, at a speed of 100.9 miles per hour. Exactly thirty five years later, Udhav Kumar pitched it at half that speed and history was made at Mica.

For almost twelve months now, Abhishek Parmeswaran has been going to sleep at 9 am, waking up after seven in the evening, and spending the remainder of the night dreaming about Arsenal, playing computer games, dreaming a bit more about Arsenal, and going to Micafe . Besides sending terminations from Dikshita Shukla’s id, informing the entire Mica community how happy she is to see Ashish Rao in a towel, he graces the gym with his presence once a month, struggles with weights which never add any substance to his overall mass, and pats his hair an awful lot.

For almost twelve months now, he has been reminded from all and sundry about how woeful his batting is. So when he swung his bat wildly a month back and the ball, strangely, went over the Silveroak boundary instead of his stumps, the signs were ominous.

That day Abhishek scored nine, and even the cement mixer shone more brightly as he stood in front of it guarding the entire midwicket boundary. A month later, on the 30th of October, the bat swung now once, not twice, but eleven times, as he smote everything that came his way either straight, over the hostel that his Palash roommate has always loved; or over the trees deep at midwicket. As the ball flew to more areas of the boundary than it had earlier known, his team mates changed expressions from initially appreciative nods to happiness to raucous applause to finally, amazement. The fraud Iyer had erased every batting record set by any of his batch mates and became the lone ‘current’ student in the college to score a century.

The most classic response came from the man himself, as moments after he had struck Udhav for a towering six to reach his century and his ecstatic team mates hugged him, he looked around bewildered and eloquently mouthed, “Abey! Maine century maar di?” Trust me, he stressed far more on that “maine” than you can imagine.

Several hours after the match, as we sat at Chhota, I sipped my tea, shook my head for the umpteenth time and remarked to Abhay Mehta how cricket had lived up to its name and was the game of glorious uncertainties.

A day later, eleven boys, none of whom had represented their batch even in a single match so far, stood united and bowled the strongest batting line-up (X-Men) in the competition for a paltry 79 runs.

Cricket is, and will always remain the game of glorious uncertainties.

p.s 1) May God let Abhishek score many more runs coz it was a delight to watch him play that day. More so, coz he’s NOW in my superselector team.

p.s 2) Bidding you all a pleasant evening, and leaving you with a picture of how, we will always remember "dear Shakey". From one teammate to another, we are proud of you buddy!

Match 4, 5, 6 results and more

Match 4 highs & lows: Khote Sikke vs Inglourious Basterds

IB beat KS by 71 runs
MOM: Nimish

The Inglourious Basterds finally opened their MCL account by registering their first victory in the match against Khote Sikke. IB decided to bat first and put on a huge total of 159 with Nimish scoring a brisk 40 and contributions from captain Puri and Arpeet.

In return Khote Sikke slumped to 22/4 thanks to a firing spell by Nimish. It all looked too one sided before Ashutosh decided to take charge and together with Anshoo they put up a 5th wicket partnership of 44 with Ashutosh tearing apart the bowling of Rishi. But Nimish returned and
claimed 2 more scalps in an over before finishing his fine bowling spell with figures 4 overs 2 maidens 7 runs and 5 wickets.

Match 5 highs and lows: Angels & Demons vs the Untouchables

AND beat UT by 130 runs
MOM: Abhishek P

Flashback MCL'08: The award for the worst batsman goes to Abhishek P with 3 runs from 6 matches and an avg of 0.5
MCL'09: The first match for Angels & Demons and the captain decided to give Shakey a chance to improve his avg. Not only he did but in the process he also accomplished the following achievements for himself and his team:
1. Highest Score in PGP8-10 batch
2. First century by PGP8-10 batch
3. First century of MCL 09
4. Maximum number of sixes in a match in MCL 09
5. Highest ever total in MCL (220)
6. Highest partnership for any wicket of 136 (with Kosal)

Apart from this there is very little to talk about this match as UT seemed to very much accept defeat and AND experimenting in bowling. Finally the match very much as expected was won easily by AND and they are really looking in the form of their life.

Match 6 highs & lows: Khote Sikke vs X-Men

It started off as a match between the strongest batting line-up of any MCL side against a team dubbed as underdogs. But X-Men choosing to bat would very much like to forget this day as a one off as the KS's bowlers ripped through their batting. Wickets feel like a pack of cards with Gaurav N and the captain himself enjoying the party. With an interim fightback by Gourav and Nakul, the X-Men were bowled out for 79 in the 16th over.

KS would have fancied their chances of winning the match but they ran into trouble early when a hazardous call for a single from Gaurav proved to be wrong and Ashish ran him out by a huge distance. Thereafter, the batsmen of KS went into a shield that didn't really help as they kept loosing wickets. Yet again, Ashutosh turned out to be the saving grace but once he got out, it seemed all over for KS and the rest was just a formality as they got bundled out for 59.

XM beat KS by 20 runs
MOM: Nakul Sud

Super Selector Leaderboard

October 26, 2009

The first day of MCL Super Selector and many close teams. I'm sure you all must be really keen to know how your team fared?

Though the match today was extremely one sided as it turned out to be, some good performances from both teams were worth noting.

Manas Makani with 49 runs, 2 catches and Man of the Match got the highest points for the day with 148 points. Is he in your Super Selector team?

Twinky with a lethal spell getting four wickets and 2 sharp catches is the second highest point collector of the day with 102 points. He better be in your team...

Gaurav Midha and Ashirvad Dev are 3rd and 4th with 65 points and 64 points respectively. If you got them all in your team, you are rich :)

So here's the leader board for the day:

1. Unevano (Prasanna): 371 points
2. Awesome Eleven (Guneet): 361 points
3. Taher's 11: 292 points

Match 4: Inglourious Basterds vs Khote Sikke

Finally the Inglorious Basterds get off the mark-Beat Khote Sikke by 71 runs

The match began with Khote Sikke winning the toss and sending the Basterds to bat. The Basterds began in usual style losing both their openers within the first 3 overs. As has become the norm now Arpeet steadied the innings in partnership with Gaurav Puri who finally found form with a responsible knock of 31 off 32 deliveries. The partnership was broken after Ashutosh took a well judged catch at the boundary off Abhinav and brought an end to Arpeet's
good run with the bat. The Basterds however refused to be bogged down as Arpeet’s departure brought in the man of the match, Nimish. He was in blazing form right from the beginning and played chanceless innings of 40 punctuated by two fours and two sixes off just 23 deliveries taking the total to a whopping 159. The total was of course helped by a healthy 28 in extras.

Khote Sikke, playing their first match got off to a shaky start under pressure from the mammoth score. With a batting line-up boasting stalwarts like Sujai and Anshoo the target seemed unattainable until Ashutosh stepped in and played an innings of a lifetime scoring a brilliant 41 off 29 deliveries including 3 sixes and 3 fours. It was however all in vain as wickets fell around him like a pack of cards. Nimish once again proved his worth as an all-rounder demolishing the KS line-up with a scintillating five wicket haul giving away just 7 runs! With Ashutosh’s departure the last ray of hope was gone with even Shashanka picking up two wickets off full tosses.
The much awaited winning moment came with Rishi’s catch off Arpeet's bowling to finish off the inning at a fighting 88.

Man of the Match: Nimish (40 off 23, 4-2-7-5)

Match 3: The Untouchables vs Deewar

It was a great October morning, cool and misty. The first outing of the season for The Untouchables and debut matches for many players not only in MCL but also in MICA. It was great to see some unusual faces on the field. Labeled as the 'underdogs' right at the beginning of the tournament, these guys were nothing less than determined to pull off an upset. Team Deewar on the other hand was looking forward to increase their lead to reach the top of the table with the hunting ground set with sitting ducks.

Twinky, taking the baton for the first time in MICA won the toss and decided to field first. In form batsman Manas and Nikhil took charge of the situation and the inexperience of Himanshu started showing. But just as they say never take your opposition lightly, Nikhil lost his concentration and his wicket and The Untouchables were celebrating. The Deewar team captain walked in and tested his luck heavily offering 2-3 chances right at the start. But he ran out of luck as he was bowled by Sunder in the 5th over. Things started looking interesting as the Deewar's batting started looking shaky and they lost Ashirvad almost immediately with Sunder striking twice. Manas and Shubby tried to give momentum to the scoring as the duo added 25 runs together.

Meanwhile, The Untouchables kept dropping their chances away and so it seemed that another aerial dolly from Shubby towards Udhav would go down the same way. The crowd had their heart in the mouth as Udhav fumbled twice on the boundary line and almost dropped it when GB2 came out of nowhere and plucked the ball. That was A Moment to watch. The Untouchables
were celebrating like they had won the match. Then the captain came into the attack and claimed 2 wickets off his first over. Deewar was struggling and the only man who was holding the ship at one end was Manas. He seemed to be cruising towards another half century but extra bounce from Twinky did him in and he got out on 49. Priyank loonker knocked off Gaurav Midha
and Taher off successive deliveries and the captain gave the final punch to restrict Deewar to 121 runs.

The captain of Deewar was not bothered and the smile on his face told that they had scored more than enough to be cruising home. This confidence showed in the team attack as Midha started off with a maiden and the captain took the first wicket of the innings with nothing on the scoreboard. Wickets started piling one after the other as Deewar's bowlers ripped apart the batting of The Untouchables. The highest partnership that The Untouchables could manage was the fifth wicket partnership between GB1 and GB2. That pretty much sums up how The Untouchables fared and the final blow came from the captain himself who got Priyank out with the help of a magnificent diving catch by Manas. The Untouchables were bowled out for 23 runs in 10.3 overs. Huge victory for Deewar and they are perched comfortably at the top of the table.

Man of the Match: Manas Makani for his 49 off 49 balls.