Date: 24 Aug, 2011

FINAL: Banking Bandits Vs E2E Tigers

Toss: Banking Bandits won the toss and elected to bat.

First Innings:

The Banking Bandits had a great start in the match, with an opening partnership of 43. Boundaries came at regular intervals with the scoring rate almost 10 throughout the innings. The opening batsman Dharmendar got out of Nagaraj’s delivery. Damodar, Syed and Sandeep made valuable contribution in batting to reach a good total of 116. The First innings by far was a great cricketing contest between the two teams, where in the E2E tigers were able to restrict Banking bandits, a team which is known to decimate the bowling attack by powerful batting, to a modest total of 116. The pressure of playing in finals was evident in both teams. Had E2E tigers not faltered in taking 2 easy catches, the fortunes might have been different for the Tigers.

Stars for E2E tigers: Arun (for his superb bowling economy of 4.3)

Stars for banking bandits:  Syed and Dharmendar (for the opening partneship)

Second Innings:

With a required runrate of 11.7 per over, the E2E tigers had a shocking start for the innings. Opening batsman Prashanth got out in the second delivery without scoring any runs. Arun, Kishore followed suit. Amazing bowling and fielding from Bandits showed their commitment towards the gentleman’s game. After the initial loss of wickets the E2E tigers never recovered. And with the result tending to Bandits favor the Tigers could hardly do anything to sustain the brilliant bowling attack. Two runouts added to the Tigers woes. For the Bandits Balaji’s bowling did the magic with three important wickets including captain Arun’s dismissal. Banking bandits won the match by 39 runs.

Stars for E2E tigers:  Syed and Pramod

Stars for Banking Bandits: Damodar and Balaji

And with anamazing finish to a spectacular event,the undefeated Banking Bandits lift the FPL cup 2011.

BM XI vs Banking Bandits

BM XI won the toss and chose to Field first.

Innings 1:

Banking Bandits splendid batting record continued with them scoring yet another total above 100. With what can be called as a steady start to the match the Bandits managed to steal only 19 off the first three overs.  And with opener Dharmendar and captain Sandeep falling within a few balls the pressure mounted on all-rounder Damodar to do the deed for his team. And he put up an amazing show to amaze all those who were in the ground with a blitzkrieg 63(8×6, 1×4) off just 20 balls the Bandits finally got back into the game. The partnership of 87 for the third wicket between Damodar and opener Bharat was not only the most crucial one for the team but also came at the most appropriate time. After Damodar’s wicket fell at 109 the team’s run flow went on at an average pace and they managed to reach a total of 132 at the loss of 6 wickets. From BM XI’s bowling the only upside was watching Amar bowl, conceding just 19 runs off 3 overs he also managed to take 3 wickets.

Score:   132/6 after 12 overs.

Innings 2:

With a lot of expectations from the opening pair the BM XI started the chase steadily.Aided by a lot of extras from Banking Bandits the BM XI had sufficient room to score. But trouble came in disguise when sathish tried to hit a ball for six in the second over. After sathish’s wicket there was an avalanche of wickets and things went terribly wrong for BM XI when they could not establish a partnership until they were 6 down. The middle order batsmen Yugandhar and Saravanan who started slow during sixth over managed to establish a partnership and took the team’s score to 107. But by then it was too late for BM XI to get back to the game. After the initial loss of wickets the partnership of 62 for the 7^th wicket is worth a mention and is certainly laudable. For Banking Bandits Sreekanth took 4 wickets destroying the BM XI top order. And a fitting semi-final between two of the most entertaining teams in the series went to Banking Bandits’ favor.

The Tigers meet the Bandits on 25^th and these two teams fight it out for the all-important FPL Cup. A Mexican stand-off between two of the best teams of the tournament on 25^th evening will be top class entertainment without a doubt.

Man of the Match:

Damodar, for his all-round performance with the bat and ball. Bat- 63 off 20. Ball- 3.0-0-1-18.

Toss won by The Appatuckers– Skipper Sathiya elects to bat first

Innings 1:

The match had an interesting start with 2 No balls and a wide but opening batsmen Arun had to leave when bowler Damodar‘s  ball deceivingly hit the Leg stump then after it was completely a bowlers match, bowlers Damodar and Sandeep gave away just two sixes and restricted any attempts by the hitters to score boundaries and by the end of 6 overs Appatuckers had scored only 36 runs with 2 wickets lost, attempting to raise the score the batsmen tried to hit hard but failed and  3 wickets fell during the 7^th over by Srikanth with just 1run spared it proved to be the most rewarding spell for the Banking Bandits, at the end of 10 overs The Appatuckers had scored 43 runs with 7 wickets lost and 9extras.

Score: 43/7 – 10 Overs complete

Innings 2 :

Banking Banditsstarted its game with ease as it was an easy Target to reach, the bowlers tried in vain to remove the wickets early as that was the only option they were left with but Syed, Sandeep and Dharmendhar with 12,13 & 17 runs to their credit carried their team to its first victory in the FPL.

Score: 49/3 – 4.5 Overs complete

Man of the Match:SrikanthbalajiAmaran- 3 Wickets for 4 runs in 2 Overs.

Am I being too unrealistic or probably asking for too much? If a small country like Greece can produce a world-beating football team – Why can’t a country with a population of over 10 billions come up with eleven extraordinary individuals who can give the Chinese or at least the Saudi Arabian football team a run for their money?

“It’s easier said than done”. Though I am just a football fanatic (a die-hard Arsenal fan), I had this thought process going about the game from a very early age. What I feel is: India’s greatest problem lies in its sports infrastructure and the uneven distribution of the annual sports budget. Consider this: On one hand, the Cricket board of India is three times richer than the combined earnings of the Australian, English and the South African cricket boards. On the other hand, the All India Football Federation is just a governing body existing because something has to exist!!

There is certainly no dearth of talent in our country, the only factor that differentiates countries like England from ours is this infrastructure. While, England has a little more than 660 official clubs and more than 300 good football stadiums including quite a few with synthetic turfs; India can’t even boast of a single stadium with synthetic turf. Ironically, the largest football stadium (YuvaBharati Krirangan, Kolkata) of India is a multi-purpose stadium, thanks to all the cultural activities that take place during the off-seasons.

So, we are left to wait for the time when sports in India will have the right balance, thus giving much-deserved importance to one of the oldest games of India. As far as I am concerned, I have a dream of watching India at least qualify for the World Cup in this lifetime of mine.

I am keeping my fingers crossed till then.

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Football doesn’t require much resource, a small kit which is way too lesser than a cricket kit and a football ground with 22 players …

If someone is playing well, he will be definitely spotted by any of the football clubs around the world and definitely he will be called for training there and may catch a place in the reserve squad in 1 or 2 years..

It’s time, we need time to play, if we are spending most of our time in education , 18 years of formal education starting at the age of 3, then how a country can produce a good football player?

Why to blame the Govt? The Govt doesn’t ask me to take up Science group in 11^th and it never told me to take up Engg…

It will take some years if we are taking up a sport as a profession to earn money..

There are many failures who took sport as a profession that is the fear

point is right but you have to consider that we have given so many good cricketers to the world,

But considering any other game there is no such support by the govt.

Even the 1^st individual gold medal in Olympics is won by Abhinav bindra is not because of govt. help.Its only bcoz

His father was a rich man and can support his requirements.

Blame the Govt, Sport should be like another elite profession.

But in India, it is just a pass time to the Billion.

We enjoy watching, we play for fun…

Achieving Sporting Glories in large means a lot to the country as a whole, China understood this, decades ago and see their progress in sports.

Point is, why do, we go for studies like Engg, by taking Science as group. It is just been made forceful, just to secure the future for each one of us.

What if happens this way, Taking sport as an Elite profession like any other IT job. Of course we should blame ourselves in some way for not risking career in some sport, but compare our Govt with Chinese in terms of sporting allocation in Budget, They invest one third of the amount that they invest in their defense. Our Govt’s negligence on long term sporting wealth of the country seems to be very, very, very dull. Still efforts are being taken at ground level. But it is almost negligible compared to the way we must progress in sports.