21 Centurions rout 16 Radians to reach the Finals

First things first, we witnessed the mother of all matches this afternoon. The semi final match between 21 Centurions and 16 Radians was considered by many as a no contest. 16 Radians were the favourites, and after their first debacle against us, The UnderDogs, they made a sparkling comeback and hardly showed any weaknesses. They were in formidable form.

In contrast, 21 Centurions were impressive only in bits and patches, they lacked the consistency of the other teams. Some considered their entry into the semi finals as somewhat of a fluke, as they only had to be better than Team Delhi and The Blockbusters, both the said teams failed to impress in this series.

But as they took field against the 16 Radians, the determination showed, their first minor victory was in letting 16 Radians field first, they have been a weak team while chasing.

After the initial few wickets, 16 Radians seemed all set to cruise through to another easy victory. But Abhinav Saxena was due to make some runs, and he appropriately chose this occasion. After getting a few runs on the board though, he fell.

Mudit, was at his best, leaving the dangerous balls and punishing the ones he deemed fit, he played a gem of an innings to take his teams total to a formidable 60.

Chasing to get 61 is not an easy task, but if there was any team that could do it, it had to be the 16 Radians, who have a history of getting high scores. Moreover, there were a few inexperienced bowlers in 21 Centurions, and they could count on their overs to let loose.

But the bowlers bowled tightly and wickets fell at regular intervals, and soon there was only one man who was coming in between the 21 Centurions goal of sealing a final spot, Rajeev Tak.

Rajeev, as we all know, has been in tremendous form, if anyone could carry 16 Radians home, it was him.
It was a wise decision on part of the team to save up Mudit's quota of bowling, so Mudit had 2 overs to bowl, with Pururaj bowling one over in between.

Mudit's first over was tight, and 16 Radians required 19 runs to win from 12 balls, of which Pururaj was to bowl 6.

Rajeev unleashed himself in Pururaj's over and scored 12, all seemed over when Pururaj dropped a relatively easy catch of his own bowling.

Mudit came in to bowl the last over, with 16 Radians needing 7 runs to win.

Mudit frustrated Rajeev, even giving 3 wide balls in the process, but Rajeev nevertheless managed a few runs somehow, and 2 runs were needed to win. Then, Rajeev unnecessarily hit a ball straight, Romit and Parveen both rallied behind it, and for a moment it seemed the ball would be dropped, but Parveen held on to it like his dear life, and Abhinav Saxena started celebrating in his usual wild fashion. A hell of a match, a hell of a victory.

In other news, in the league matches, The Blockbusters finally showed their true colours against Team Delhi, who were pulverized for just 2 runs!!! Needless to say, The Blockbusters won.

GJ 6 lost against 16 Radians earlier on, ending their winning streak, but they went on to defeat the would-be-finalists 21 Centurions in a convincing fashion.

Tomorrow, we play our semi final match against GJ 6. The match is scheduled to take place in the morning, so it would be a different experience.

Both the teams are playing good cricket, and its a tough choice to decide between the two teams, though GJ 6 has an edge as they have earlier defeated us in the 'one' match we have lost in this series so far.

But, we are in good touch too, and everything seems to be working perfectly for us, so expect another cracker of a semi final.

Contributed by : Kanishka Chakrabarti (VC)