Omaha Cricket Association

The finals were set to be a colorful family event and it indeed was. There were several spectators, families, kids, and even first timers from different offices (friends of players). Under bright sunshine and under the tent each team had excellent support. The proceedings started with a complete line-up of the teams for pictures followed by the toss and pre-match interviews with the captains. Mavericks captain Pradeesh won the toss and elected to field. When asked for his strategy, he kept his plans close to heart and said he would look to restrict UNL to less than 100. True to UNL campaign, captain Gautham was even more easy going and mentioned that they were just looking to play their natural game.

 So after much fanfare, the teams ran on to the field. Mavs kept the ball tight and bustled in the field. Before you knew, the cream of UNL was back in the ranks and they were at 20 odd runs for the loss of 5 wickets, mostly due to some accurate bowling by Sharath. Thereafter it was mostly recovery job by UNL, done efficiently with a straight bat by Gautham and some flat bat by the lower order batters including Pavan and Aikansh who made useful contributions. In the end, UNL had a par score of 91.

At half time, Mavs were very confident about their prospects. After all they had UNL exactly where they wanted -- score less than 100. But this was the finals, where the pressures of chasing even mediocre scores have brought down fabled teams. But Mavs beleived they had the firepower in them to run down the chase. The second half by all means was the challenge that everyone was licking their hands for. UNL bowling against Mavs batting. Mavs started their inning with Praveen and Pratyush. Praveen was in blistering form in the super six stages on scoring a strong half century as well. But this time he went early edging a Vineeth delivery behind. As expected, UNL bowlers were right on target and scoring was getting difficult. With pressure mounting in the chase, Asad went for 5 and in came Manoj.  Beneath his calm exterior, Manoj can pummel the bowling like a madman with an axe...but the challenge was if he could do it against the laser guided missiles from Gautham. It turned out the missiles were too much for the axe. One good length ball at extreme heat aimed at the body and before he could pivot the body weight, the ball had taken the edge and gone up in the air for a tame catch. Round One victory for the ball. Before this act was being played out at the striker end, it was probably foreseen at the other end by one of the two geniuses in Mavs team -- Pratyush (who had correctly warned Manoj that a trap was being laid by not having an extra mid-wicket boundary, and enticing the pull). Not surprising perhaps, given for someone who cracked the IIM! Omaha has perhaps rarely seen a more slender batter get such immaculate leverage in his shots with his ability to get underneath the ball. This was probably not his best inning of the tournament (he ended with the best batsman of the series) but he kept hammering loose balls and continued the momentum of the team as the game progressed.
But progress was slow indeed. But with captain Pradeesh and Pratyush in the middle, and the other genius of Mavs (Vishal) still in the hut, Mavs were still the favorites. Then came a curious turning point of the game. UNL captain pulled a muscle strain and had to be taken out of the game for treatment. With the spear out, there was a question as to how well the UNL armory would work. Perhaps loosing his concentration and game plan, Pradeesh spooned a Sreenivas ball up in the air which was caught brilliantly by the substitute who ran back several yards. In came Vishal, who by all probability is Omaha's answer to a right handed Ganguly. Apart from Sam (Red Devils) there has rarely been anyone who has flayed balls through the offside with such panache. But then again this was a different bowling machine that he was facing and UNL (even though hadn’t seen too much of Vishal) had curiously enough heavily fortified the offside.