Kerala CC (story)

[GrahamB]

KERALA CC v SAURASHTRA (20 Over Cup - Super League)

As fate would have it, a win here today would have seen us progress into the Super Final.
However, we were to fall short by just 8 runs under very difficult conditions.

Saurashtra won the toss and chose to bat on a day that was expected to be very cloudy throughout.
Thanks to a sparkling knock from English international Mark Hind (58), aided by Gupta (28) and Jackson (28), the visitors put together a challenging score of 143/8.
Shukla with 4/30 and Saini with 3/14 were the pick of our bowlers.

We lost four early wickets to set back our prospects, but a good partnership between Sunil (48) and Puri (37) got us through to 99/4.
However, we needed to put the foot down and wickets again started to fall.
We went into the final two overs requiring 19 to win, but this was too big a task for our lower order batsmen.



Oh so close to making our first Super Final!

[GrahamB]

[GrahamB]

2021 SEASON

Expiring Contracts

The following players did not have their contracts renewed:

R.Puri (batsman)
A.Nath (batsman)
J.Bumrah (all-rounder RMF bowler)
V.Sood (LS bowler)

The following players were deemed to be those still useful and affordable to us:

K.Katti (opening batsman)
S.Pawar (batsman)
P.Khaleel (RMF bowler)
S.Sharma (LS bowler)

Ram Puri was too expensive to keep and has not fully delivered on our expectations anyway.
Akashdeep Nath was in the squad mainly for the OD and 20/20 competitions, but his performances have been largely disappointing.
I'd like to have kept all-rounder Jasprit Bumrah, but we needed to take our budget into account and so it was with reluctance that we let him go.
Varun Sood was an exceptional bowler for two seasons, but the last two seasons have seen a dramatic drop off in performance, particularly at the first class level.

Of those re-signed, Kulvir Katti has performed well in all three forms of the game and is still young.
Satrujit Pawar has been a solid performer and holds further promise. He was also a reasonable price.
Pandya Khaleel has shown enough to convince us that he could become a key part of our bowling attack.
With Sood leaving the club, we took a punt on re-signing Saarik Sharma. He hasn't let us down, but the jury is still out on his future further down the track.

New Signings

We were looking for two or three top order batsman, an all-rounder (if affordable), another seam bowler and another spin bowler.

We tried unsuccessfully to sign V.Shankar, so eventually had to settle for two youngsters, 23 year old Roshan Sugwekar and 25 year old Kalidas Rasheed.

27 year old Indian international player Akshar Patel was the most affordable quality all-rounder we could sign. He will be more useful for his spin bowling.

The extra pace bowler we signed was youth player Sudeva Mahesh.

We are not in the position to sign an overseas player for the coming season, but at least we have a useful 18 man squad.

Our 2021 squad in the next post.

[KGKOOLKAT777]

Akshar Patel should be a great signing!

[GrahamB]

Kerala CC Squad 2021

Opening Batsmen

Saurabh Wakaskar (age 30, bat averages 48/38/28)
Kulvir Katti (age 25, bat averages 53/30/27)
Sanjog Ramprakash (age 22, bat averages 26/-/46)

Other Batsmen

Talor Sunil (age 22, bat averages 61/53/45)
Kalidas Rasheed (age 25, bat averages 55/-/30)
Hanuma Vihari (age 27, bat averages 52/36/28) (keeper)
Satrujit Pawar (age 22, bat averages 48/30/25)
Shiv Gautam (age 32, bat averages 32/25/21) (keeper)
Ahura Badani (age 22, bat averages 11/-/32)
Asuman Gandhi (age 25, bat averages -/21/15)
Roshan Sugwekar (age 23, bat averages -/-/-)

All-Rounders

Akshar Patel (age 27, bat averages 24/23/17, SLA bowl averages 29/29/27)

Seam Bowlers

Nishad Saini (age 24, RFM bowl averages 29/24/16)
Pandya Khaleel (age 21, RMF bowl averages 107/29/22)
Nimai Ali (age 23, RF bowl averages 39/-/11)
Sudeva Mahesh (age 21, bowl averages -/-/-)

Spin Bowlers

Saunak Shukla (age 21, bowl averages 26/13/12)
Saarik Sharma (age 22, LS bowl averages 29/-/19)

[GrahamB]

Akshar Patel should be a great signing!

I'm hoping he'll continue his great form from the past two seasons.

[GrahamB]

KERALA CC v ODISHA (Indian FC League)



A disappointing start to the new season, as we only got 1 point from our opening match.

Batting first, we had an unbeaten century from Vihari to thank for allowing us to limp through to 270 all out.
Ali Murtaza was the destroyer and finished with the excellent figures of 6/65.

We still had a chance to secure first innings points, as our bowling attack is a good one.
However, centuries from Dey and Mallick got Odisha through to a strong position where they declared at 364/5.

Late on Day 3, all we realistically had now was a draw.
Katti (86) and Sunil (79) redeemed themselves for their first innings failures, while Vihari (68) continued his fine form.
Of concern were double failures from both Wakaskar and Pawar.
Wakaskar had a poor season in the first class competition last year and will desperately be looking for a big improvement this season.
We declared at 304/6 to give our new ball bowlers a brief burst at the visiting batsmen.

Saini picked up a cheap wicket as Odisha batted through to stumps on Day 4 at 32/1.