Monday, 22 March 2010

Match Feedback (Dubai) - Mar 19 2010 by Joe Chemmanam

Hi all

We are slowly but surely becoming a better team. We won 2 matches on a single day which is quite an achievement.

Bowling

We bowled first ..Our guest bowler showing very good control of the new ball. He is a really good bowler. Prashant also bowled well though got a bit predictable with the short ball. I myself also bowled well mixing the pace in the final overs ...Razzaq bowled ok and got a bit confused when the batsmen started moving around in his crease. Need to just concentrate on ur line and length... Special mention to Mani and Prasanth Sr. Bowled 6 overs on the trot without giving away much runs ..Prashant Sr bowled extremely well ..Can only tell him to come regularly for practice and also to learn to vary his pace a bit ... kept on increasing his pace and thus lost his dip and flight in the last over he bowled..but he is extremely talented..hope he doesn't waste it ...

Batting

Razzaq was in great form ..scored yet another 50 in double quick time .. Anish gave him good support .. Prshanth couldnt get started this time around ..its a difficult ground as a lofted straight drive can easily be caught at the boundary while a mis hit can go for 6 .. Sajid was finding it difficult to middle the ball ..but he stuck around and played a crucial knock ..again lack of practice is evident .. Need to improve his running between wickets significantly ... Candor club has changed its game from just hitting to a well rounded game now with a lot of emphasis on running between wickets/rotating strike etc ... mani consistently took singles and changed strike .. the only thing we could have avoided was the mini collapse .. Sanal, Raju, me and Zia got out in quick succession .. was one of the worst shot of my life .. should have taken more responsibility ... luckily we had an experienced hand in Prashant Sr ..and a good hit for 6 by our guest player took us through in the end ..

Fielding

Very sad to see catches dropped. Zia dropped 2 easy ones.. Both keepers dropped one each ..both were easy catches and should be taken ... lack of calling was the reason for 1 drop....
Ground fielding was good with Raju, Shameen, Razzaq and Anish especially doing a lot of good work ..

Umpiring

It wasn't the best ..it was their home team .. we have registered a complaint but we were too good in the end against 11 players and an umpire ...

Regards
Joe

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Match Feedback (Al Ain) - Mar 19 2010 by Joe Chemmanam

We have reached the semis of the Tournament unless the organizers comes up with some new rules..

Again a superlative performance by the team .. The only blemish were the catches dropped by Razzaq. The reason i can think of is the body balance ..he is falling and is not able to be in a stable position to take the catch ... need to practice and gain confidence ..

Guest player and Sangeeth bowled very well. Those guys had no clue what struck them ... they were well backed up by myself, Sajad, Razzaq, Sanal ... Anish fielded very well .Fawaz took a good catch ..

we had to cahse down 104 runs as quickly as possible ..Razzaq and Anish scored very quickly ..and though we lost 2 wickets at the end ..we reached the required target in 10 overs ...thus increasing our run rate ....

We will top Group B unless Al Attar scores 208 while batting 1st or chases and wins in very few overs in their match against Al Ain Eagles.

Teams in Group B Matches Won Lost Runs Scored Overs Run Rate Lulu (our team) 5 4 1 698 84 8.31 Al Ain Royals 5 4 1 718 90 7.98 Al Attar 4 3 1 607 78 7.78 Bank Warrios 4 1 3 Al Ain Sportsplex B 4 1 3 Al Ain Eagles 4 0 4 Al Attar has a match left against Al Ain Eagles Bank Warrios has a match left against Al Ain Sportsplex
Regards
Joe

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Saturday, 13 March 2010

Match Feedback Joe Chemmanam - Dec 26 2009

My take on the match .. mostly it will be criticisms ..but that's what
will help us improve .. i will take a printout of this ..and will
discuss with each one of u during Monday practice...

Joe:5-39/2
Anish:4-48/1
Sajad:5-33/0
Prasanth:4-27/3
Hafiz:1-18/0
Raju:2-42/0

Razzaq: 36(24)
Anish: 68(43)
Ziya:37


Fielding

Fielding has definitely improved but i would say we fielded to 65-70%
of our potential.

Presence of mind,Anticipating Shots and thereby moving early, Not
backing up throws. Have to sit down with ur body behind the ball when
u field especially at the boundary

Long on, long off, Third man and Fine leg standing half way and not on
the boundary line... these are unpardonable mistakes ..and no captain
can keep on reminding u to stay at the ropes in these positions.. The
only ppl who can stay a bit inside the ropes are square leg and deep
point coz u expect a top edge at square leg and u dont expect a
batsmen to hit over point for 6.

Another issue seen yesterday was the amount of nervousness. Everyone
should speak and encourage the bowler/fielders and discourage the
batsmen in between deliveries. Yesterday, what was happening was
..there were some encouragements in between deliveries but the biggest
noise was when someone was going to field ..everyone gets so nervous
and starts shouting.. throw here throw there ..u are just putting
pressure on the fielders by doing that. max u have to do is to tell
the fielder which side to throw . this should be done by the keeper ..
and whether the fielder can take it easy or he needs to rush ..again
only by the keeper ...

Bowling

Everyone bowled decently. There will be matches where ppl will get hit
..that is bound to happen .. Only concern i had was we didn't plan the
overs well and somehow had to bowl Razzaq somewhere in the middle
overs .. but these things do happen ... but a little bit of planning
might have saved us some runs..

Joe: Didnt bowl as well as he could .. took some time to understand
the batsman's weakness. Thanks to Raju and Prasanth for pointing it
out .. but if u guys had indentified it early ..please do come and
talk to the bowler and tell him that .

Anish: Have to learn to bowl shorter balls .. otherwise did a decent job ...

Sajad: bowled brillantly .. Brought up back into the match .. first
ball was a long hop ..but from then was too good ...

Hafiz: dont know what happened ..its true that i myself had told him
to give flight in the practise sessions ..but the length should be
such that the batsmen has to come out and take huge risk to hit u ..
the 2 sixes were too full and anyone would have hit it ...

Prashanth: bowled really well .. have to practice bowling a lot more
during practice

Prashanth (wk): kept very well .. can talk to the bowlers more... and
should practice his leg spinners more ..

Batting

openers did a great job ..anish was brilliant ..Razzaq started off
slowly but started hitting well .. I would have loved if Razzaq had
stayed a bit more ..someone who is playing well have to stay .. Razzaq
.. take this as a challenge ...what was really nice to see was the way
these 2 ran between wickets ..credit goes to anish who made razzaq
also run .. but 2 points here ..
a) Razzaq ..please start calling ..plus please ground ur bat when u run ..
b) Anish.. well run ..well played ..its not nice to criticize someone
who played so well ..but u could have saved a bit of energy by just
walking some of those singles where u were sure there is no chance of
a 2nd .. i believe that anish finally got out because of tiredness
...could have asked for a runner ..

At this stage ..i think we could have send in a hitter as anish was
playing well and we could have just killed the opposition there ...
maybe myself or hafiz could have been tried ..but again ..its another
case of "if" ..it could have backfired as well

Raju: hard luck ..those things happen ...
Prashant Police: he knows his mistake ... he is a senior batsman ..and
he and raju was supposed to stay and play a long innings ... i am sure
he wont repeat this ..
Joe: wanted to stay till the end ..but i would lack of practice
against decent spin bowling did me in .. again sorry for not playing a
decent long innings..

Sajad: again .. its difficult to complain ..but i would say that u
have to show a bit more patience .. if u had stayed till the end ..we
would have won the match ,....choose the bowler to hit ..and try less
riskier methods first ...

Ziya: if u see his innings from a scorecard point of view ..he has
done a great job ..but from the match perspective it was sad .. .. has
to improve his running between wickets and attitude a lot .. no
backing up at the runners crease ..no communication with partner etc
... u have so much of talent ... its sad seeing u waste it ...have to
practice running between wickets and playing against the short ball...

hafiz: played a blinder of an innings ..well played .. hats off to u
.. tried his best ...

Fawaz: had to rotate strike or hit out ... fitness is a big worry ...
there was always 2 runs in that shot ... but again came out at the
last stage and its always tough ...

special mention to our 12th man ..did an awesome job .. just was a bit
confused with the field settings ..but will get used to it .. we are
looking forward to the day when u will be in the playing 11.. u
definitely have talent and its just a matter of practicing.. that day
is not far at all...

Overall .. we needed decent partnerships after the 1st one .. they
maintained a scoring rate of 11 run per over without doing anything
silly ..but most ppl after that ..tried to hit big ones when again the
asking rate was only 11 ... its as easy to score the first 100 as the
last 100 ..the only difference is in the mind .. dont put pressure on
urself while chasing ..just take it easy ...

Our match result on newspaper - Check the spelling

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/sport/inside_sport.asp?xfile=/data/cricket/2010/January/cricket_January3.xml&section=cricket&col=

‘B’ Division: Gandor CC beat Bin Shakir CC by16 runs. Gandor CC
243/5in 21 overs (Aneesh 93, Prashath 108, Moez 2/46.) Bin Shakir CC
227 (Shareef Ahmad 87, Aneesh Mandae 42, Joe 2/36) Man of the match:
Prashath of Gandor CC.

Match Feedback Joe Chemmanam - Jan 16 2010

Dear ALL,

2 days of great cricket. I congratulate everyone for the splendid
display for 2 days running. The entire team deserves a great applause
for showing spirit to travel 2 days in a row from Abu Dhabi to Alain.
Hats off to you!!!

1st match (won the toss and batted)

Anish:93
Prashant (police): 100 +

Total 244 in 21 overs

Dont remember the exact bowling figures. But Hafeez, Sajad bowled
really well and contained the runs. Ground fielding was ok but some
catches were missed but we hung onto 2 important catches, one by Joe
and one by Hafeez. last 2 Overs were also bowled well by Joe and
Sangeet. Just 8 runs were scored from these 2 overs when 26 were
required.

We won the match by 18 runs.

2nd match (lost the toss and was asked to field)

They scored 217 in 22 overs.

Razzag bowled really well. Haffeez and Sajad also did a decent job.
Again some catches were missed and some good ones taken also.Ground
Fielding was ok.

We chased very well till the 14th over. Razzaq batted brillantly for
his half century but would have loved to see him finish the match.
Anish and Sangeet also played cameos but again Sangeet could have
stayed a bit more and the match would have been over. Raju, Prashant,
JP, Hafeez all contributed with the bat ..Zia in the end took very
close with some brilliant hitting but we were just short by 8 runs
..But this ensured us a better run rate and a place in the semi
finals.

Feedback

catching can improve. backup has to improve. batsmen who are set need
to finish the match.

need to practice bowling to contain batsmen. in the 2nd match there
was a batsmen who was good on the leg side. We need to know how to
bowl at least 2 stumps outside off so that such batsmen can be
contained. We could have saved 15-20 runs easily. Another thing we
need to learn is to bowl slower balls, back of a length deliveries and
short balls. Yesterday's team had no clue on how to hit short pitched
deliveries. Not a single batsman hooked or pulled but even then they
hit some 10 sixes straight down the ground as we over pitched on more
than 1 occasion.

Also its very important that we don't get tensed on the field. All
shouting and cheering should be in between deliveries and not when the
fielder is going to field the ball.


We have a very good chance of lifting this trophy as we are the semis
now. its just 2 matches and we have been better than every team we
have played against in this tournament.

Cheers
Joe

Individual Feedback for each player. - Joe Chemmanam Feb 01 2010

Dear All,

Sorry that i couldn't send in my comments earlier. I am sure i am not
going to have more friends after sending this mail ..but these are
just criticisms for improving our team and hopefully no one will take
it personally. I hope i haven't missed anyone and i would like others
to comment on my performance in a similar manner (only criticisms/
suggestions and no

We had an overall decent tournament at Al Ain but when we look at the
facts out of 4 games, we won only 1 match. But having said that, our
performance in all the matches except the last one (semi finals) was
good.

Feedback for each player.. it will more of criticisms..please bear with me.

1) Anish: Batted really well in all matches but needs to improve his
bowling and learn to bowl short deliveries more. Find of the
Tournament for our team. Well done !!!
2) Razzaq: Back to batting form after a brief gap but capable of much
more with the bat. Bowling of Razzaq has improved a lot but need to
work on slower balls plus also the capability to bowl short balls at
will. I would say he did his job in this tournament.
3) Sangeet: Was unlucky with the bat. He is too good not to bounce
back. Only advice is to take it easy and enjoy the game. I guess the
only reason he failed in couple of matches is becoz of too much
pressure being put on himself. Can be a serious all rounder who can be
a bit more active on the field.
4) Prashanth: Played 1 match to his real potential. Like Sangeeth, too
talented not to bounce back. I would like to see him play a
responsible controlled innings rather than a swashbuckling century.
Needs to analyse his batting statistics to see that 80-90% of his runs
are scored in boundaries and hence puts himself under pressure when he
is not able to score boundaries consistently. Again a serious
contender for an all rounder post.
5) Raju: Got his chance in only 1 match and he played decently.
Should be played up the order in the coming matches to give him more
confidence. One of the better motivators on the field. Can improve his
speed while fielding at the boundary. Not an easy task considering his
height.
6) Zia: Scored runs in all matches. It might seem like a very rude
statement but not a single innings was a match winning one. Again if
we check his batting statistics, 80-90% of his runs comes in
boundaries and at least 40% balls faced are dots thereby putting a lot
of pressure on the team and the non striker. need to improve running
between wickets and general understanding of the game. Highly talented
and hence can change his game easily.
7) Hafeez: Bowling revelation of the tournament for us. I was really
surprised at the way he bowled in all the matches. Shouldn't bowl
inside the power play. Needs to cool down, relax and enjoy the game.
Also need to be a bit more tough mentally to come back after getting
hit. One reason i wanted Hafeez to continue his spell in the last
match was to see how he responds to pressure. Needs to work on that
aspect.
8)Sajad: Bowled really well. Can even consider starting the bowling
attack. varies his pace very well. got us back into the match time and
again. Was not given a chance with the bat. Would like to see Sajad
batting up the order for the next few matches.
9) Shameem: Mentally the toughest and most motivated guy on field. I
would love to see 10 more guys like him. Way to go buddy. Would want
him to bowl and bat responsibly and i would be the 1st one to
recommend you to play in the 11.
10) JP: Again didnt get much chances. Played well in the last match.
Has a tendency to go hard at the ball and thus scoops catches in the
in field. Need to learn to play with soft hands and take singles. One
of the best fielders, and great motivator. Need to play up the order
in the next few matches.
11) Joe: Couldnt provide break-through s in the opening spell. Didnt
get much chance with the bat. Again needs to bat up the order to
regain confidence in the next few matches.
12) Prashanth: Extremely talented person. if only he comes to practice
then we have a regular keeper and also a very good leg spinner. No
captain will have confidence in him as a bowler unless he comes and
bowls regularly in practice. Whenever he comes, he needs to take
practice sessions a bit more seriously.
13) Ameer: dedicated and committed. Though i didn't tell him this, i
wanted to win the semi finals for him for the commitment he showed by
just being there at the ground.
14) Sumit: A great bowler with a variety of deliveries and can be
devastating if the ball grips the surface. Need to learn to bowl on
glass like surfaces like Al ain where it doesnt grip.


All in all, we have a great team .In fact, our team is too strong and
hence we need to define roles for each batsman/bowler. in fact, in the
last few matches, Sajad who can open the innings is batting at number
11. similarly we had 5 very good fast bowling options (Joe, Razzaq,
Prashant Police, Sangeet, Anish) and 3 spin options (Sajad, Hafeez,
Prashant Sr) in the last match. its too much talent in a single team
and its very important that each person understand their roles here.

my suggestion is that we should always have 1 hitter and 1 good
batsman at the crease or even 2 hitters...

at the moment, the good players hit and get out and the hitters are
asked to play around for singles...

JP, Hafeez, Razzaq, Raju , Joe etc should be used as hitters

Prashanth, Sangeeth, Anish, Zia, Sajad should play the other role...

Match Feedback Joe Chemmanam - Feb 20 2010

Most of us will be happy to have won 2 matches on the trot ..but i am not at all happy with the way we played ..

they played without a keeper's glove for almost 16 overs ..and then when they batted, there was this injury delay which really brought us back into the match ..But to our credit
we took our opportunities and won the match ..

Finally its better to win the match by playing badly than lose a match after playing well..

Batting

1)Anish: played well .. i am personally so happy to see him mature ... hope he continue his good form..

2)Razzak: played well again .. he is like sehwag ..no point restraining him .. would love to see him playing longer innings .. as soon as spinners come to bowl, i feel he will get out any ball..

3) Sangeet: struggled to start against spin.. same issue that most of our players have ,,, need to show more patience and try and rotate strike against spinners ...

4) Prashant: Same issue as above .... need to rotate strike when spinners are on ...

5) Raju: was unlucky to get the top edge ...

6) Joe: Struggles to hit the spinners ..did stay and rotate strike for some time ...need to work on hitting the spinners.

7) JP: need to rotate strike when spinners are on ... cant always hit them out of the park ..

8)Hafeez: need to rotate strike when spinners are on ...running between wickets to improve .. doesnt back up at the bowlers end ..

9) Prashant Sr: Last stages ..tried his best ..

10) Joseph: good running and decent hitting ..got us past 150 .. which turned out to be crucial

11) Shameen: tried his best ..but too late in the order to do anything ..

General Feedback about batting: 2 main issues

1) except for anish, no one rotates strike when spinners are bowling... its either dead bat or boundaries or hitting out ... all of us need to improve on this ... we cant keep hitting good spinners for boundaries without taking unnecessary risks .. nor can we deadbat and put pressure on the other batsman...

2) Except for Anish, Razzaq, Sangeeth and Prashant.. the other batsmen are very low on confidence and haven't got decent chances to play and improve their confidence ... I would suggest to give more chances to JP,Joe, Hafeez, Sajad, Raju etc in the upcoming league matches so that when we reach the knockout stages, we have a decent set of confident batsmen ..

Bowling

1) Sangeet: Bowled a good opening spell .. Good use of the short ball .... some extras given ... 2nd spell was a disaster .. need to bowl to the basics .. if batsmen hit you, u still keep to ur basics and hope that he makes a mistake .. the last over of his spell cost some 23 runs ..and could have ruined the match .... but these are all things to learn from ..and i am sure Sangeet would have taken this as a good learning ..

2) Prashant: good opening spell .. Over did the short stuff a bit .. i think he was pulled for 3 boundaries .. but still a very good spell considering tis the 1st time he is taking the new ball..

3) Joe: Not bowling anywhere close to his best ..need to work on his fitness, run up and rhythm .. first 2 overs went for runs and also bowled wides ... came back strongly in the last 2 overs ..

4) Hafeez: Bowled very well.. But need to work on his field settings. He bowled almost 2 overs with 5 fielders inside the circle and without a deep mid wicket .. he went for 3 boundaries in that area... shouldnt bowl unless u have ur field ...

5) Joseph: Bowled well .. 2 very important overs ...

6) Prashant Sr: Need to Practice his leg spinners more .. bowled 1 good over but the 2nd over was costly ..but lots of talent ..his field settings were also not correct..

Fielding

Joseph needs to work on his catching skills ..we cant hide fielders so he has to take the initiative and work on this.. ground fielding and backing up was very good ..

Hafeez took a good catch.. it was a crucial catch ..well done...

JP had an off day on the field.. he is one of our best fielders so i am sure he will come back strongly....

Fielders need to know their positions for each bowler and need to go back to their positions every over ..captain cannot keep reminding u where u stood the previous over ...

Captain

JP got the taste of a pressure match ..need to work on his field settings ..bowlers need to help him on this ... have to be more authoritative on the field.

Bowling changes were good .. i dont envy his job coz he has 10 bowlers (all except him) can bowl well ... and there was even a talk of JP bowling yesterday ..so he had to choose from 11 bowlers ...2 wicket keepers ... not easy at all :P

I am working on field settings for each bowler ... and will be sending this to JP... JP can share this with each of the bowlers...

Regards
Joe

Match Feedback - Mar 06 2010 by Joe Chemmanam

A very small ground with a strong breeze blowing against the bowler ... its a batsman's paradise ..and as usual its the bowlers who suffer ..

We won the toss and elected to field ..which i personally believe is the best choice on such a small ground as no total is safe on this ground ..and any good batsman can shred a bowling attack to pieces ..

Bowling

1) Sangeet: very good 2 overs to start with ...got couple of important wickets which slowed them down considerably ..the only way we can slow them is to keep getting wickets ... but its a difficult task on that ground ... 3rd over was a disaster costing around 20 runs ..but came back well at the death to bowl his 4th .. .i think he went for close to 40 runs in 4 overs ..but considering the fact that 3 overs were in the power play and then the 18th over .. an overall good job ..

2) Joe: bowled well ... went for 33 runs in 4 overs.. again 2 overs in the power play and then the 17 and 20th over ..overall decent job

3) Guest Player: Bowled very well .. went for just 28 runs in his 4 overs ... very good effort ...

4) Razzaq: was bowling with a nice rhythm on the off side with a good field ..first 2 overs were good ..but 3rd over went for a lot of runs ...40 runs in 3 overs .. need to concentrate on a line wide of off stump ..

5) Shameem: 2 very good overs ..but lost the plot in the 3rd over ..went for just 6 runs in his 1st 2 overs ..3rd went for more than 20 ... need to concentrate more ..and need to tell the captain that he needs rest if he is feeling tired ...

6) Sanal: not a ground for his style of bowling .. but then it was worth a try for 1 over .. 2nd over could have been avoided ...

overall good performance .. but can improve ..need to practice bowling in the death .. depending on the batsman this can be either bowling short at the body or wide of off stump .. when bowling wide of off stump the idea is to bowl aiming at the off stump wide mark ....

Batting

210 was not a great score on that ground..but then they had a score on board and it was up to us to chase it .. luckily we got a good start

1) Razzaq : played very well ..no comments ..did his job ..
2) Sangeet : played well but wasnt in great touch ... but still scored 26 in quick time ..shows the talent he has got ..
3) Prashanth: played well ..but just a reminder to play a different game in alain and other bigger grounds .. scored an unbeaten 95 ... carried on with a bruised cheek .. awesome display of shots ..
4) Sanal: played very well.. looked very solid .. was unlucky to get out... but very happy to see him middle the ball ...
5) Raju: kept rotating strike ..not a single dot ball ..and didn't try to do anything fancy when Prashanth was playing well..just gave him strike .. a very simple thing to do but i have seen several others find it difficult to do this ..good job ..

won in the 16th over ..easy victory in the end

Fielding

Zia has to improve a lot ..

Razzaq missed 2 catches but he usually takes them so i am not that concerned.. Nishant fielded well and backed up well ..

overall fielding was ok ..

some simple things to mention... its a small ground and they were not good at running between wickets .. the moment u understand this fact, move to the edge of the inner circle and stop the boundaries ..i think any bowler would be happy to see a single taken on that ground rather than being hit for a boundary as the ground is so small .. but if u see that one batsman is not very good at hitting or he is a new batsman then u can come in and try stop the singles to keep him on strike ...

Fielders on the boundary has to be at the ropes ..not even a cm inside as the ground is this small.. there is no way they are going to run 2 ..so be at the line and try max to stop boundaries....

These fielding tips are for Dubai matches ..when its AL Ain ..the ground is much bigger ..so u have to be a bit more in from the ropes depending on where u r fielding .. similarly the inner circle fielders also need to stop the singles as boundaries are difficult to get in Al Ain ..we need to suffocate them for runs in the middle overs ..

We have a very good winning momentum now .. i pray and hope we continue to maintain this in the games ahead ...

regards
Joe

Match Feedback Joe Chemmanam - Mar 13 2010




Brief Scores

To start, we didn't field our best team. Prashant Police, Sangeet ,Anish was easily missing from our starting line up. The idea was to give some valuable time in the middle for our middle order batsmen including me, JP ,Sanal and Raju. plus a chance for players who couldnt participate in the previous matches.

Their Team batted 1st and scored 170 runs in their allotted 20 overs. 2 players scored well. Bowling wasn't the greatest and our fielding was pathetic at times with a lot of overthrows and poor backing up.

170 was a huge score for us especially without 3 of our best batsmen but we scored 169 in the chase and should have won the match comfortably in the end. Sanal (45), JP (30's) and Joe (30's) played well but each one of them got out at the wrong time. Needing 9 off the last over and just 3 off the last 4 balls, Joe got out and we lost by 1 run as we lost wickets on each of the last 4 deliveries.

Fielding

I am starting with fielding this time as i believe we lost the match due to our ground fielding. We missed 2 catches, one by me and one by Razzaq but it was the ground fielding where they consistently ran 2 after hitting it straight to the fielder. Backing up was really bad. At this level of cricket (we are playing B division cricket and not school cricket) we need not call up "back up" every time. If the ball is hit to the off side, the fielders ( square leg and mid on) has to move in such a way that if the fielder throws at the stumps he is ready to back up.
Same is the case if the ball goes to the leg side. The off side fielders have to back up ... Could have easily saved 25-30 runs here by improving our ground fielding.

Bowling

We are still having a small issue controlling the new ball though no one has come any where close to my record opening spell on the 1st match :P. still we need to control the extras with the new ball. They scored 31 in the 1st 3 overs with just 2 boundaries.

Joseph: Wasn't able to control the new ball and bowled some wides. but came back well in the middle and end overs. Good work.

Joe: Went for runs but got some crucial wickets. Bowled well in 2nd last over. Last 2 overs of their innings bowled by me and Joseph went for just 11 runs which was very good. Can improve on his bowling.

Shameem: he continues to impress and bowled 3 decent overs. Tried a slower ball which went for 6. Apart from that it was a good spell. was unlucky as an over throw 4 happened in his over.

Sajad: very good spell as always. Got us back into the match.. got crucial wickets also ... excellent spell .. we miss Hafeez also ..both these guys can really create pressure bowling in tandem.

Sanal: bowled ok ..he is a bit predictable .. but then batsmen has to take risks and he is always unlucky as most catches are dropped off his bowling ..the culprit this time being yours truly.

Razzaq: got his field completely wrong. I still dont know why he had a slip fielder when he came on to bowl ... and then with no one on the leg side, he bowled 2 leg stump deliveries which went for 4 ..was clearly an off day for him ..but a thing to note by the captain .. Need to talk to the bowler and make sure what he is trying to do ..coz in a knockout match, one small mistake is gud enuf...

Batting

Razzaq: Needed a good start from him as usual ..but then he showed that he is a mortal man and that the law of averages will catch up with anyone.. razzaq has been in tremendous form but yesterday was not his day ...

Raju: Very talented but couldn't get a move on yesterday ..its a matter of time and big men play well in big matches so hoping for a raju special in the knockout stages.

Sanal: Played a very mature innings ..didnt panic at all ..and played with minimum risk .. ran well ..and he along with JP resurrected our innings and got back the momentum ..we had scored just 10 runs in the 1st 3 overs .but by the end of the 6th we had close to 50 on the board. he is ideally suited player to play in the middle overs .. extremely well played but got out at a very wrong time... it was the last ball of their best bowler ..well played ..

JP: played positively and was in very good touch ..ran ok between wickets but then i think they could have stretched a bit more ..anyways a crucial partnership which really got us back into the match .. again spin turned out to be his downfall .. tried too many risky shots in the 1st over of spin ..well played

Joe: we needed close to 100 runs in 11 overs when he came to bat .. Joe played well giving strike to Sanal initially and then hitting a couple of boundaries when it was needed .. ran very well between wickets .. scorecard will show just 2 boundaries in his 30's and a lot of doubles and singles ... Should have finished the match himself .. got out which just 3 required from 4 balls ...but then hopefully wont make the same mistakes in the knockout stage ..well played

Sajad: ran well ..got tired because he was down with fever ..but tried his best .. was a bit weak against the shorter ball ... need to improve fitness ...

Joseph, Prashant Sr, Shameem: i totally agree that i should have finished the match myself but these things happen and invariably u guys would always be left with such situations as u come in to bat in the late middle order .... with 3 required off 3 balls, its important to keep ur cool and make sure u just connect the ball and at least take 1 run every ball ... dont try to finish in 1 ball ... just touch and run ..thats it ..unless u hit it back to the bowler, there is always a single available ....


Though we lost the match by 1 run, i personally believe that we did a great job especially in batting (scoring 169) with 3 of our main batsmen not available. The way we didn't panic except maybe for the last 4 balls of the match was good to see .... and most importantly, our idea of valuable time in the middle for Joe, JP and Sanal worked out ... This will surely help in the knockout stages.


Most important Part

we still haven't reached the semis. The team we lost to yesterday has won 3 out of 4 matches. Similarly the team we won against ( the broken nose), i believe that they also have 3 wins in 4 matches.. So our last match is crucial and a must win match ..

Ameer will be getting the scorecards and tables from the organizer. we will get a correct picture only after that...

Regards
Joe