Drop Catches costed Strikers a match in the crucial stages of the league
After winning the first game of the season with a birlliant comeback, strikers went to game 2 with full of confidence. Where toss almost decides the fate of the game, strikers lost the toss and were forced to bat first. Under overcast conditions, Openers did a good job of playing cautiously and scored off the bad balls. When everything seems to be going good, they lost back to back wickets of Meghnath Reddy and Raghunath Basireddy in the 9th over. Jay Bharath tried to unsettle the bowlers by moving across the crease but bowler eventually wins the contest by getting a top edge. Similar story continued throughout the innings where batsmen either played cautiously and got out by the time they were settled or tried to disturb the bowlers rhythm and got out cheaply. Strikers were 86/9 by the start of 28th over and something rare happened. The batting duo of Krishna Chaitanya and Kishore Kolipaka added 86 for the last wicket partnership which included 44 runs(5 sixes and 2 fours) of last 2 overs. Krishna Chaitanya and Kishore tried to not give away their wicket while trying to score runs wherever possible untill 38th over before Krishna Chaitanya started his onslaught. At the end of 1st Innings, strikers posted a par score of 172/9 in 40 Overs.
![[Game Picture]](/images/gallery/Strikers T40 2022/strikers_game2.jpg)
Seconds Innings started brillinatly for strikers as Srikanth Reddy got 2 wickets the 3rd over and put the WCC on back foot. But then Strikers fileders did not support their bowlers and they have dropped 3 crucial catches of Moiz and Abhishek dhar in first 10 overs which eventually proved to be costly. Meghnath came in as first change and bowled brilliantly but Moiz and Abhishek added 59 run partnership and were looking dangerous before Moiz threw his wicket by playing an unnecessary shot to point. WCC were 79/4 at 18.5 overs and matched was evenly poised. Right after the break, Strikers got a crucial runout and got the momentum to their side. Avinash then got the crucial wicket of Abhishek Dhar in 26th over and put WCC in deep trouble with them needing 70 more runs in last 14 overs with 4 wickets in hand. But Sachin and Avinash Nigam of WCC showed lot of strength of their lower order by punishing bad balls and rotating the strike regularly. On top of that, dropped catches from Strikers are not hurting them as well. At the end, WCC chased the target comfortably with 2 overs remaining and 4 wickets in hand.
Highlights
1. Brilliant Batting Display from Krishna Chaitanya 2. Nice support from Kishore in 86 run partnership for the last wicket. 3. Brilliany opening spell from Avinash and Srikanth 4. Best bowling spell of the match by Meghnath Reddy.
Kishore Kumar Kolipaka
Kishore Kumar Kolipaka joined Bellevue Cricket Club in 2018 and has played for all 4 club teams, captaining multiple squads. When he's not dominating matches for the Strikers, Blasters, Chargers, or Smashers, Kishore works as a Data Engineer at Amazon