Titan

Atomic Aspirations

Walt H. Rambaransingh | Date 10/21/19

On a sultry, cloudy late October day, the Palm Beach Titans finished the regular season of their 2019 South Florida Cricket Alliance 20 over competition. Game 12 of the 2019 SFCA 20 over regular season would be played against Ambassador SC at Lauderhill SportsPark. Palm Beach Titans won the toss and elected to bat first while the umpires reduced the game to 18 overs due to time constraints. With Captain Tiki Singh unavailable due to overseas pub crawling duties, Vice-captain Avinash Pooran confidently took the reins of captaincy for this match.

Sachith and Skipper Avi opened the batting in a pragmatic manner by running some rapid singles and rotating the strike. Skipper Avi lost his wicket late in the 4th over by popping up a ball to square leg which was easily caught. Praveen replaced Skipper Avi at the crease and began with a quick-fire pace scoring 5 boundaries in his first 9 balls faced. Sachith followed Praveen’s batting pace and had an important 81 run, 6 over, 2nd wicket partnership that set the tone for the entire match. Sachith lost his wicket at the end of the 10th over after scoring a blistering 60 runs with a strike rate of almost 200. Nagarjun replaced him and steadied another significant partnership with Praveen. Both batsmen continued the swift pace with a 48 run, 4 over, 3rd wicket partnership. Praveen, unfortunately, lost his wicket at the end of the 14th over, scoring 49 runs at a strike rate of 181. Arun replaced Praveen and established a solid partnership with Nagarjun for the remaining 4 overs. Nagarjun lost his wicket with 3 balls remaining in the inning after scoring 39 runs. Arun also scored an important 24 runs in 12 balls at the end of the innings. At the completion of the first innings, the Palm Beach Titans scored 196 runs in 18 overs with Sachith scoring 60 runs (31 balls), Praveen scoring 49 runs (27 balls) and Naga scoring a 39 runs (24 balls).

Walt and Arun opened the bowling in guard of the assertive Titans score of 196 runs. Arun struck first with his & the team’s first wicket in his 2nd over (4th overall) tempting the left handed opening batsman to slog on his legside where he was caught out by Bharat who took a beautiful catch over his shoulder running to the deep midwicket boundary. The second opening batsman lost his wicket later that same over via a run out executed by Sachith and Skipper Wicketkeeper Avi. Walt bowled 1-2 bad balls per over in his 3 over spell and was subsequently punished and thus resulted in a high economy rate. However, Arun continued his stingy bowling and took 2 more wickets in his 3rd over (6th overall), one by a diving wicketkeeper catch by Skipper Avi and the other by a catch by Naga at the cover position. By the end of the 7th over, Ambassador had 57 runs on the board with 4 wickets already lost. Maruthi was the initial first change bowler and was very frugal in his spell, only allowing a total of 8 runs. Paul was the second first change bowler and had pockets of success with a 1 run 2nd over bowled. However, his first and third overs were expensive. Leju came in as the 2nd change bowler and had an immediate impact with the last ball of his first over where he took his first wicket via a solid catch by Bharat at deep midwicket. Leju scalped his second wicket by removing the stumps of the number 7 slogging batsman in his 3rd over (15th overall) with a menacing in-swinging delivery. Maruthi removed the last 2 remaining batsmen via a catch by Paul at the long on position and a clean bowled with the 1st and 3rd ball of the 16th over. Bowling highlights included a 3 wicket haul from Arun, 2 wicket hauls from Maruthi and Leju along with miserly bowling from the same 3 bowlers. Fielding highlights included a 2 catch haul by Bharat and some sensational ground fielding by Baz. At the end of the 2nd inning, Ambassador accumulated 119 runs for 8 wickets lost in 15.3 overs. Palm Beach Titans won the game by 77 runs. The Titan’s bowling details are below:

Walt – 3 overs, 0 maidens, 34 runs, 0 wickets. (2 wides)

Arun –4 overs, 0 maidens, 21 runs, 3 wickets. (2 wides)

Maruthi –2.3 overs, 0 maidens, 8 runs, 2 wickets. (0 wides)

Paul –3 overs, 0 maidens, 40 runs, 0 wickets. (2 wides)

Leju –3 overs, 0 maidens, 13 runs, 2 wickets. (2 wides)

The last regular season game of the 2019 South Florida Cricket Alliance 20 over season for the Palm Beach Titans culminated with a smashing victory against Ambassador SC. Batting highlights included Sachith scoring 60 runs (31 balls), Praveen scoring 49 runs (27 balls) and Naga scoring a 39 runs (24 balls). For the season, Sachith played in only 6 of the 12 game schedule scoring 328 runs with a batting average of 82 including a high score of 108 and not outs in 2 of the games. Bowling highlights included a 3 wicket haul from Arun, 2 wicket hauls from Maruthi and Leju along with parsimonious bowling from the same 3 bowlers. Fielding highlights included a 2 catch haul by Bharat and some sensational ground fielding by Baz. This 20 over season seemed to be an anomaly with the lack of player availability the main culprit for many of the matches. The team should qualify for the playoffs as the number 5 or 6 seed. With a newly elected leadership regime in place, the impressive victory proved to be a concrete evolutionary footstep in the veracious direction for the club. The Palm Beach Titans will continue to progress with the 20 over playoffs, off-season activities and upcoming 2020 30 over season beginning at the start of the calendar year.

The scorecard for this match is available via the below link:

http://chauka.in/index.php/scoreboard/display_scoreboard/169650