Indoor Cricket Season 6: Game 9 - BK Rojaks vs Power(fore)play

A six point summary of the match between BK Rojak and Powerplay..(also known as ..too lazy to write a proper one)

Faltering lines bowled by Rojaks and  Powerplay took us to the cleaners and made a mockery of    records piling up a record 185 in 12 darn overs..which is nearly as much as what Comwerks managed to score in total from their 10 games last season.

Uninspiring fielding was only a side-effect than the cause for us getting hammered. We dived and jumped but more so to get out of the way of screaming shots.

Careless batting is not something you want to start with when chasing..but then when you’re chasing 186 to win what do you really care about? Throw caution to the wind and go for the glory shots, unfortunately Rojaks only did the former, latter never really happened.

Karthick is worth 20 runs by simply fielding, let alone bowling or batting; exactly what he reinforced on that day, except for that he is not one of kind in a team that’s really got some power-players like Dharmik as well. Powerplay is a team to watch out for..hmm..will Century Eggs be able to take them down?

Everything  wasn’t bad after all – some notable performances were  Pacman’s impeccable first over despite playing cricket after such a long time. Last time he played was for the West Australian indoor cricket team “Waca waca gooolagoongzoongies” in Boomerang series in the year of 1956 and then  of course the newbie Daniel Ralph who showed a remarkable comeback in the second over after conceding 1000 runs in his first over

Damn the past and move on is all we can say now. Look forward to some wins in the coming weeks given we have played most of  the tough teams already!

-          By Special reporter ‘Fake indoor player’

Indoor Cricket Season 6: Game 8– BK Durians vs Bloomberg

Round 3 of the cricket season and all 3 BK teams were stunned into disbelief with the worst start to a season on record........ a total of 6 games across the 3 teams and we remained winless!!! The elite of BK Durians had something to prove!

[cue cheesy chariots of fire music]

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-7Vu7cqB20

We met under the dodgy lamplight outside the cage and swore our oaths to break the losing streak..... with words of "just get the basic stuff right...and don't get out!" we pledged our allegiance to the cause. The game was against Bloomberg, the setting...... cage 3

We won the toss and elected to bat, and in the style of a true leader Lalith and Chris led the charge scoring 43 of the first pair, rising to the challenge, Jorgo and Tim also managed 43 despite Jorgo getting bowled first ball, and rounding up an amazing batting effort with some beautiful running between the stumps - Patrick and Rod finished the innings with an inspirational 35..... Total score 121

The depression on the side of Bloomberg was palpable from the first over of their batting where Jorgo, and then Tim each took 2 wickets during their overs, leaving Bloomberg with the almost impossible task of recovering (after the first pair) from a score of 9. Aside from a short spurt by the last pair, Bloomberg never really looked like being much of a challenge with a grand total score of 60.

Our Fielding - inspirational, Our bowling - magnanimous, Our batting - Spectacular! Lalith's captaincy - forgettable! BK Durians finally figured out effective batting pairs, and produced a performance worth writing home about........ and finally, got the win their confidence sorely needed......

[end cue'd music]

-          By Special reporter Tim “Lalith Modi” Jaja

Indoor Cricket Season 6: Game 7– BK Century Eggs vs Octopus

Our first game as one team, and unfortunately not a great result. Prashant and Adrian opened, with Prashant getting some nice shots in the first over. But, some sloppy run outs left them at a score of 12 at the end of their innings. Amy and Anil came on next, facing some good bowling from Octopus. Unfortunately, they were run out four times and caught once. Both Anil and Amy running across the field led to a massive bump; seen more from our rugby cousins. She was alright, and they finished the innings with -13, leaving us -1 for Gordon and Kumar who was testing the game out. They both played some good shots, and managed a decent 24 to leave us exposed at a total of 23.

The bowling was a little better. Through Prashant's bowling, the Century Eggs got two run outs, and a catch that was deflected from Prashant onto Adrian. The very next over, Amy came on and sent down a sizzler that was hit back to Adrian, who juggled it over to Amy. Gordon then took a fantastic stumping, leaving Octopus 33 after the first pair. The next two pair saw another two run-outs by Kumar, first on Adrian's bowling, then down the other end to Gordon. Another stumping by Gordon on Kumar's bowling, but the damage was done by Octopus finishing at 107.

Overall, losing 9 or so wickets will make your chances of winning very tough. We have to focus on well-executed batting, solid running between the wickets and not getting out. Our fielding was decent, and more practice on bowling to ensure we are not getting slapped around.

-          By Special reporter Julian Tate

Indoor Cricket Season 6: Game 5– BK Durians vs Marina(Chuckers) & Game 6 - BK Durians vs Power(fore)play

Caution: 'PG' Rating (some coarse language and violence depicted in these narrations)

The inaugural performance for the stinkiest team in indoor cricket, the BK Durians, was a keenly anticipated event in many calendars, as this was the first time Bedok had set their blinkers and were making a determined effort to win the Seasoned Pro league. With this goal in mind, we approached these 2 games with the intent of stamping our ownership of the competition and let everyone savour the sweet sticky smell of success……… Unfortunately, as the team name suggests, the pungent odour that wafted over the playing field smelt like a combination of rotting custard and onion, spiced with the failure of a tactical nightmare gone horribly wrong, and topped with an after taste of jorgo soiling his pants......... Yes, we failed miserably!

Molested by Marina..
The first game against newcomers “Marina”, which was playfully touted as our “warm-up game” got off to a horrible start with a woeful performance with the bat from Tim and Lalith, conceding no fewer than 5 wickets and finishing with a grand total of 16………and unfortunately that was one of the better batting pairs, it just went downhill from there….. One strategic point to note, is that when BK’s performance dips……..we don’t seem to recover well (i.e. unable to shake off the willies). This carried through to our fielding we were beaten soundly 134 vs 70

Raped by Powerplay..
The second game was our chance to redeem ourselves! The group huddle between games allowed us to recoup and re-focus, and I have to say, our fielding performance against (arguably) the best 5 batsmen in the entire league (powerplay had ringin’s Karthik, Kedar and Dharmik) was nothing short of spectacular, with a pinch of good old fashioned sledging thrown in to season the broth, we had the opposing team struggling to find runs……and a few key wickets we managed to keep them down to a score of 80!  Quite an achievable target one would think………… but wait, the unfalteringly familiar fetid fragrance of failure was ever there to smack us in the guts! A strategic withdrawal turned into a complete rout as more than 15 wickets were squandered in the short space of 12 overs……. So much so, that our grand total of “0” (no, I haven’t forgotten to write a number there, our score was zero!) was all karthik needed to throw all our hard earned sledging back in our faces.

All in all, an eye opening experience, obviously a LOT more work is needed on our batting partnerships, and also on our talk in the field…….. the key factor being that when someone makes a mistake, or a boundary is hit by the opposition, we as a team need to talk ourselves back into the game! The key moments where we looked like winning, were all when we were alert and applying pressure on the opposition – which became very obvious in the fielding portion of the second game.

-          By Special reporter Tim "Lalith Modi" Jaja 

Welcome the spin guru Muttiah Muralitharan

Kochi Tuskers have been debarred from the IPL due to financial irregularities (though they claim to have paid Lalith Modi way in advance), which puts a big question ahead of Muttiah Muralitharan, who do I play for now? Apparently that quest has brought the spin legend to Singapore where he is hoping one of the indoor cricket clubs will buy him, but when he was asked about it, he just nonchalantly replied saying “oh IPL issue..’chuck’ it..i am here for charity”..hmm, careful with the ‘C’ word Mr. Murali!

While that piece of news from our Fake reporter might just not be true, what is absolutely certain is that Murali is going to be in town and very much within reach for anyone keen and enthusiastic enough to cough up ahem..a 100 dollars..but all worth it if you get to spend some time with this absolutely fabulous gentleman legend of cricket

What's in the name?

Even Sir Don Bradman once said..“I might have never been as effective a batsman if I was playing with a different bunch of players every game”; ok he didn’t quite say it, but perhaps would have if he was asked that specific question. 

Dodgy opening quotes apart, the update for this week is that we have crafted a new strategy. As we looked through the performances of BK teams, what came out as a problem was that there were a different set of players playing each game, ie there wasn’t a consistency on who represented BK1 or BK2 etc…so first things first, we need to get that sorted out..and after engaging high performance consultants and doing a detailed Argus kind of post-ashes-ish audit etc etc (all in my mind) the decision was taken to split the entire BK indoor cricket pool of players into 3 distinct smaller pools of 8-9 players. Each of the three teams will have a captain/in-charge/bitch who will manage their respective pool, pick the team for the games based on the first/best available six players and of course borrow from another pool if they can’t find 6. At least it will ensure there is some kind of semblance of a consistency in what team and team-mates you get to play with on an ongoing basis. Should help the players grow along as a team, bond better , drink better and may be win games?? Nothing that we do, however will let us deviate from the basic guiding princicple of the club, which is all about participation and fun. Oh yes..btw we have entered a third team into the league, just to make sure there are enough games for all of the available BK players to get into. Also with this third new team we have a chance of making sure this team can go along winning games from the outset and who knows, this season might be ours…the same thoughts Kiwi cricket team must be having before entering into every single cricket tournament. Our magnificent changes  didn't just stop there.. We also decided to shun away suffixes to the BK teams such as BK-1, BK-2 etc..a little rebranding has never hurt anyone, so why not?

So we got all serious about getting the most right sounding names for the three teams and finally settled for:

BK Century Eggs
BK ROJAK
BK Durians

How awesome is that? Local flavored team names lah..can can can I say!

That's all the updates for now..more after the stinky BK Durians have kicked some asses in their first round of the games.

Indoor Cricket Season 6: Game 4– BK2 vs Organised Kaos

BK after  a 3 game losing streak, up agaist  Organised Kaos thisweek, , what can possibly go wrong on proving Murphy's law?

Jorgo was seen in action for the first time this season. Julian, Oliver, Chris and Lalith was joined by new kid on the block Dan, playing his first game for  the Kings.

Organised Kaos won the toss and elected to bat. What can one say about our bowling ? 147 after 12 overs speaks for itself. Then again, less painful way of looking at it:  Organized Kaos batted well.

On the lighter side of things, One of our Kings, redefined the art of bowling wide  , with some of the balls almost hitting the side walls!

Armed with a Mongoose in his hands , Chris Rogers stared butchering the ball like Matthew Hayden would have, and thus began the chase. Julian and Chris ended up at a promising 51 at the end of the first 4 overs. The second pair could only could manage to take the total to 71 assilly stumpings and some controversial runouts didn't help the cause.

Jorgo and Dan , the new boy, batted fluently but couldn't avoid the inevitable. BK ended up at a decent  score of 91, but of course well short of the target.

We will beat the Organized Kaos boys, Next time I reckon.

-          By Skipper Lalith “Malinga”