POOL Y - Ranking By Ravish -week-3

POOL Y

Since Indus and Falcons weren‘t active this week, the ratings for the top 5 teams changed substantially. Not much action like POOL X, since a lot of teams is new. Most of the games this week were low scoring ones and didn’t carry much zest like the Pool X ones.
Need a more competitive spirit to make the games interesting.

Rank	Team	Why
1	Cougars	After two successive wins and leading the POOL Y with 25 points, Cougars take the No 1 spot. Sent to bowl after losing the toss, Cougars meant business right away. Stand-in captain Anand led the team and made sure Mallik’s absence didn’t cost them much. Still with a lot of bowling options, Anand didn’t give much time for the batsmen to settle down with his bowling changes. Once the opening pair fell, Cougars ripped through the middle order and the tail enders could resist only till the 15th. Part time bowler Murugan had an impressive 3-5-3. Batting, Cougars took full advantage of the weaker VP bowling. Ajay was his usual self and made a mockery of the VP bowling with an unbeaten 20. Another two more victories and Cougars will retain the top spot.No match this weekend.
2	Falcons	Unlucky Falcons – had to split the points with A2C2 since the umpire couldn’t stand ground for just another 30 minutes until the sun came out. The other four teams in the same park were just lucky to have umpires who were determined to see the game go through. Not a fair deal for the Falcons. Would have been anyone’s game but Falcons had more chances of winning considering their current form. Request to all the umpires coming for games that are likely to be affected by rain - please be fair to both the teams and be patient enough to see the possibility of a game played. Since the decision is in your hands, please make a wise one. Try and give the teams a fair weekend of cricket. I hope the Falcons had their weekend cricket satiation by playing the MDCL.Playing Spiders this week. Falcons will be charged up after missing the match last weekend. 90:10 against Spiders.
3	Greens	Move up the table after beating Dark horses convincingly. As expected Sathish delivered the goods along with a telling spell from Sriram and some useful contribution from Mustafa, Vinay and PC. They packed the DH for 54 reflecting a much disciplined bowling. Arvind and Ashish chipped in with the batting. Playing Beavers this week. 90:10 against Beavers.
4	Lions	Lions came back with a much deserved victory against Spiders after losing to Cougars last week. Expected result, but they made it look very easy. A good fuel for their confidence. Harsha, Vamshi and Venu bowled a conditioned spell restricting the spiders to 70. Chasing a low score they rushed to the target in 10.2 over – 7 an over. Wonder what the score would have been if they batted first. No change in Venu’s aggression with the bat, but this time they also had Kiran who made a quickfire 38 with two boundaries and a sixer. Lions need to keep this going for the next few games to stay in the top 5. They can’t afford complacency. Playing another family of cats – Tigers this week. Since the Tigers are low in confidence after a streak of losses, Lions might grab the opportunity to go for the kill.
5	Indus	Missed in action, since they didn’t get to play last weekend after Beavers gave a walk over. Playing Dark horses this week. Odds against DH. If batting first Indus should look to post a big score, and if bowling first they could try and do what Greens did last week.
6	Vision Phoenix	A lot was expected from the VP this game. Their strength was batting, but wasn’t even a shade evident. May be they were missing some key batsmen. Batting first they had a lull start, and found it hard to pick up the line of the bowlers. Opener Satish showed some aggression in the beginning, but was made to go back foot with some tidy Cougars bowling. Kannan hasn’t clicked this season yet. Once the openers fell, the rest of the batsmen paid short visiting hours to the crease. Manoj showed some resistance and also managed to clear the ground once, but he didn’t get good support in the other end. They ended their innings with trifling 49. Trying to defend this low score, they started their first over conceding 10 runs. The Cougars didn’t take long after that to put them of their misery. Lot of patch up to do, they need to re-visit their bowling options and also plan their batting order. A very good team, but the skipper (whoever that is) needs to address the problems as soon as possible.Playing PTS this week, it’s a tough call, both have their failings. 50:50.
7	A2C2	Got lucky by splitting the points. I mean it’s still anyone’s game, but still were lesser favorites than the Falcons considering the stats. Not a team to write off, since they have all the potentials - good batsmen and killer bowlers. But their lesser experience with DCL is working against them. They are quite capable of beating any team, but not yet. Still need to use their bowling options effectively and revive the batting order. Alex should come up and try to play a long innings which he is quite capable of. Bowling, they should give more overs to Samir. He is a smart bowler like Kondal who has variation.No game this week.
8	Tigers	No game last week. Hope they were able to get more practice and are ready for the rest of the round 2 games. Wonder what happened to Tushar bhai. Man, he is a clean striker of the ball. Got the privilege to see him hitting all over the park against Indus. Will he be back to the rest of the games? Tigers still have chances of making the final cut to pre-quarters. Need the same confidence they had in the initial two games against Indus and Greens. Vishal is an able captain of leading his team efficiently to the next level. Go Vishal! You can do it.Playing Lions , they need to stop their losing streak and look ahead with confidence. 60:40 against Tigers. Surprise us Tigers!!
9	PTS	No match last weekend. They had a week to recover from the beating they got from Indus. Hope that has changed their strategy and they are looking eagerly for the next match. Being a new team, PTS has shown a lot of improvement from the first game. Quick learners, I am sure by next season they will be a lot better. Playing Vision phoenix, PTS should just stick to the basics and not try anything extra. 50:50. Anyone’s game.
10	Spiders	As predicted last week, Spiders caved in without a fight. What happened to Karthik? His usual contribution would have taken them close to 100. I guess it just wasn’t their day. Lions proved too good for them. Spiders need two or three more Karthiks in their batting line up and a couple more Nags to the bowling. In the 11th position now, they need to win all the games here on which I think is a herculean task. Karthik should go up the order and play an anchor to rest of their batting. There are a couple more batsmen who just didn’t click yet. Who was that guy who hit those towering sixers against Bytes? He needs to play more games.Against Falcons: The charged up Falcons may just be overwhelming for the Spiders. 90:10 against Spiders.
11	Dark Horses	After their last win(first win for the season), they just got a bit complacent. Either that or they were no match for the Greens. No idea what their batting distribution was. No scores are entered yet in the website. Anyways I am assuming Adnan, Diwakar or Sudhanshu didn’t do well. But then against Greens bowling, its not easy to score runs. They have some crafty bowlers who have threatened even good teams in the past. So I don’t blame DH. DH are no. 10 now, close to Spiders and in the same situation as them. Need to win almost all the games. Tough!!Against Indus : Indus without a doubt.
12	Beavers	Gave a walk over to Indus, Something that all the teams must try and not do. You might as well come and play with 7 players rather than not playing. Its just not about winning or losing. Hope they show up against Greens and give a good fight.Against Greens: 90:10 against Beavers.