MAGA: Make Gymkhana Great Again
I just don't have the gift of brevity that our esteemed president has so, read or don't read the following- but we will roughly follow this script. Typos, repetition, etc are par for the course, ignore and move on from there. You may get the gist. Not good with acronyms either.
I still remember the eventful day in late April 1997, we were given three days to field a team in MSCL. Just two days before playing our first MSCL match- we had 38 people that showed up for practice/meeting. After a long debate about playing in MSCL, I simply took the only bat we had in the club and drew a line in the sand and asked people who wanted to be part of the club to join on the other side and few moments passed then sensing danger I strode over first, Gopal Subramanian was just a step behind, after many an uncomfortable moments Kailas Kavishwar crossed the line and that was that- the rest were history. That was impractical and foolish in retrospect- people had jobs, kids, wives, were students and all that *&^% we hear even today: why do they even want to play cricket? - all the stuff that still holds true even now- they could not commit. Yes we were 3 of 38, that is 9% that was the distillate. A club was formed. Against all odds we fielded XI that Saturday and we had a complete kit (sans a helmet) that helmet came by the 10th or 11th match after USA fast bowler bowled bouncers and injured 3 of our batsmen in failing light. That is another saga.
24 years might have passed, but it feels the same- not much has changed. Past is a certainty and future remains dicey as always for Gymkhana.
Well one thing is for sure the following XII will show up on Saturday, barring an act of gOD. The F team of past would have the entire roster show up with families and all, but this is way past any semblance to that F concept. But nevertheless, we will show up and all will be raring to go, off that I am sure.
Sorry I cant help myself here (and any self respecting Gymkhanian should not either) from the club perspective: Cracker Barrel Fair is up this weekend: do you guys need a bloody *&%$# invitation to do something ? The following weeks will see major cricketing events- events that are extremely important for our club- we need ALL OF BGSC-F TO BE PART OF THIS. We will be hard pressed to have anyone in the team or the club without your involvement- sorry in terms of life we are all in the same boat. We need you and are counting upon you. This is all of our club- do something. Many of you are some of my closest friends, but from a club standpoint this season has been a big letdown- we are all about mscl matches, Parak excepted. You all know what needs to be done- come on. I hope you step up- BGSC needs you more than ever.
This email is for the consumption of some very smart and successful individuals, but BGSC is a volunteer organization also remember I invited all of you to this team- The F team. So if there is any issue with this team it is ultimately on me not you. It is my failure if any, not yours- so always take my words with a grain of salt and a single malt Scotch- salt is optional.
Onto Saturday:
We will have the best field BGSC can have for a playoff match, tent will be set up, Yes we will set this tomorrow- come if you can and get this done...set up benches etc also. It is not going to happen in a vacuum. Just send me an email back. Do what you can here- we are all as busy as any other first generation bloke in Ammreeka.
Our playing XII is in a VERY rough batting order listed below:
No matter what we are going to win tomorrow !
How ? We will win if we score 280+, we will win if we bowl to defend 150. Dichotomy is it ? Not really. Just a simple truth. Our attitude will matter. This is a team sport, this Team needs to score 280 and needs to defend 150- Play your part- be the strongest part of the Gymkhana chain on the field. We are only as strong as the weakest link- be be best you can be. If we all give it all, in terms of TEAM’s game plan, we will WIN. Play like you approach a tennis, golf, wrestling, or gymnastics and we are less likely to come out ahead.
Basic X's and O's. Focus and calm, eye on minutes/over. Game plan below.
Batting approach:
Bikram Singh
Midhun Kumar
Nitish Bahadur
Then this gets situational...
We will play the game situation, like we have been doing: we have more batsmen on paper than we need, we just need to maximize our chance of winning, and that will be by scoring more runs than Melbourne can. Genius observation !
If we lose early wickets 2 for 13 or so, Nafis/track I will be activated..otherwise someone else will>>>>from Track II.
The two tracks are in no particular order, everyone in this batting order has played #1 to 12 and I know all of you in this team will play for the team. You will play the game situation not to your batting position also. In this, I am confident. We only have TEAM players in this Playing XII.
Track I: as a rule of thumb, your job is to play low-risk cricket and play to stick till the 39.5th ball.
Track II: easy peasy- we need 280 as a team. You can calculate what we need, just think we are chasing 280 and stay above the runrate. LISTEN 280 is just 7 an over- nothing too dramatic. A maiden here and there is fine. You can score 20 runs an over, get set and get the team over the line. Be there till the end and we have 333 on the board.
In my opinion, just with Track I, we will get to 180 to 250, with Track-II batting through we will get to 220 to 333.
Melbourne’s Attack
If we take the average of the top 5 bowlers for Melbourne, they will let us score 151 (they have pretty much the best RPO in the league (Jackman, Blake and Bowell- less that 3.62/over- Barry Jackman 12 runs/wkt, Bowell 15/wkt & Blake 23.5) and they will beat us on that average ( our best in the playing XI and likely to bowl is 4.2-7.00 rpo & the average is 20.5 to 41). This disparity must be covered in our batting. ~181 (disparate bowling attack) will be a par score for them across MSCL- over the year. Against our fielding and bowling it will be 217. Thus our bowlers need to (prepared to) defend 151 for a MUST WIN. With our best fielder Harmeet out we will give an additional 25 runs in the field. So our batsmen need score 25 more, so 217 +25= 242. Being polite to self = we have 5 over ~50 years old, so 8 runs/person 242+40= 282, pretty close to 280, or really speaking we need to score 280-300 to win- go get it batsmen. That is 7.5/over, we will do this, as we have done this in playoffs as the F team. That will be par and that is what we sort of defended last time we played them
Last time we scored 300 in a playoff match. Interestingly, six of the original Fers will be playing on Saturday:
Track- I
Dilip Chavan
Parak Ananta
Nafis Ahmad
Deepak Chadha
Raja Tummla
Track II
Dilip Again
Pawandeep Heer
Raja Kolli
Gundeep Singh
As a Batting/Bowling unit- do your job as a Track-I/II batsman and follow team instructions (good ball bad ball may go to hell), we will need to keep our EGO in check. On the bowling front we have not done that this year- batting wise our batsmen have followed the script closer- with a few exceptions. Perhaps Dilip has. Gundeep is working hard. Deepak has more variation this year and perhaps is a better bowler than he ever was- he will be even better in 2020. Even with the two very middling years with F1, I will be picking Raja K in my All Time Gymkhana XI. Nitish is another one (as an allrounder), wow All Time Gymkhana XI will be a tough team to pick with Parak coming in as a keeper/batsman. More on this later...
We will open the bowling with Dilip and Nitish (Nitish picking the end to bowl from).
For one change we have multiple options- situational tactics will make some demands also. We would like to bring Parak as a wild card- perhaps a 16 run over will result or a brilliant 2 wicket over or 4 overs for 25 runs and 1 wkt- and that just opens up our bowling options. We will count on our bowling stalwarts of Deepak (Gymkhana’s go to), Gundeep-improving all the time, Raja Kolli- one of Gymkhana’s all time clutch bowlers. Nitish on song will be key too. I think we can even defend 140 in a very tight situation. We simply should not be in a tight situation. Btw Bikram, Midhun, Raja Tummla & Pawan will be our tertiary bowlers- we are looking at 7 rpo (max) vs 5 rpo(with front line bowlers) . So 280 is defensible in the worst case- challenge to our batsmen. Bowlers, you are defending 150, 3.8 rpo. A tough as based on the season we had, but the playoff focus and intensity should help.
Like I said, If the situation is deemed rife for lalloo-panjoo bowlers I will bring Parak in for his 2019 debut in the 9th over (He bowled 6 overs in 2019 as opposed to 63 in 2018), 4 Parak overs for 20-32 are valuable extension of our bowling resources down the chute.
Under pressure, Gundeep will bowl the last over, Deepak the second last, before then it is between Nitish and Raja Kolli, then Bikram and so on...Dilip may be done with his 8 or maybe not for this match. We will try to use 7-8 bowlers to keep the team’s option open. Just like we like to bat deep, we will like to bowl deep also.
If Baljit was playing he would say “Figure it out” win this for your club.
Balli you are awesome- Thanks for being part of Gymkhana F-I.
Chakk de Gymkhana,
Bikram Singh
