Result: GRCC won by 6 wkts

Report:

I would like to thank Sircar & co. for the awesome arrangements made for the finals. The crowd for their great support and Mr. Khurram Khan for the award ceremonies. RCC won the toss, good toss to loose as pointed out by Hari, and elected to bat on a perfect day for cricket. Satbir and Ashish J opened the RCC innings. Ramesh and Hari started the bowling by hitting their line and length from the start. Satbir rode his luck in the initial going when he was dropped 3 times with in a span of 5 overs. I guess the final demanded some initial jitters. The moment that broke the shackles was Dhiren's blinder of a catch (Straussesque) in gully to dismiss Ashish with the score on 24/1 in 7.3 overs. Samay joined Satbir and immediately was given a reprieve of the bowling of Raj. With things in disarray, GRCC took their first break at 10 overs with score on 54/1. The next 10 overs were pivotal and turned the game in GRCC's favour. This was mainly attributed due to good bowling by Raj, Khanna. Both of them cut the singles and made the batsman go for rash shot of good deliveries. Samay tried to clear long off but was unsuccessful, good catch by Vicky C (53/2 in 11.3 overs). Satbir soon followed when he tried to cut Khanna but found Nat at point (62/3 in 14 overs). Andy played an uppish square drive and was caught by Vicky A at point of Raj, 70/4 in 17.3 overs. Chirag got lbw by trying to play across of Khanna, 86/5 in 20.5 overs. 10 - 20 overs yielded 45 runs and 4 wickets. After this the danger man was Keyur P. Just when he looked to step up the pace Dhiren got him when Keyur tried to clear long off, good catch by Vicky c (99/6 in 24.2 overs). The rest of the RCC innings were finished off through some good fielding, especially the cheeky direct hit from Khanna to remove Keyur S. RCC ended with 125 in 28.4 overs. Nat and Amar opened the GRCC innings. Samay started the bowling bang on target and Keyur S followed suit. Amar broke the monotony when he hit 2 fours of Keyur's second over. With a small total to defend both openers played it safe and took the occasional boundaries provided to take the score to 38 for no loss in 10 overs. The match was in a balanced state. Immediately after the break Andy provided the first break-through by removing Nat lbw. Vicky C joined Amar and crafted an excellent partnership of 51 runs. Both of them ran well between the wickets and took what the bowlers gave them. Amar mixed in a few big hits to make sure that the run rate does not get out of hand. With the various bowling changes not producing the required effect Samay decided to take matters into his own hands and immediately struck by bowling Amar (47) with score on 89 in 20.4 overs. In the next over Satbir got Shas lbw to give RCC a chance to come back into the game. Vicky A joined Vicky C with 33 runs required of 48 balls. Both of them played sensibly and kept the strike rotating. Some tight bowling from Satbir and company kept RCC in the game. In the end with 13 runs to go and 3 overs left Vicky C hit two consecutive boundaries to make things easy for GRCC. It was then a matter of time before which we could reach the target. Hari hit the winning run by playing Mayur to backward square for the much awaited final run with 4 balls to spare. RCC gave a spirited fight right till the end. The pivotal point in the game was the dropped catch on Amar by Satbir when he was on 12 and Vicky C's consecutive boundaries in the 28th over. A job well done, GRCC are 2005 MACC CHAMPIONS!!. I would like to appreciate the good umpiring from both Ron and Fergus. They were consistent and impartial through out the game. Amar was given Man of the Match for his innings of 47.