KW All Stars won the inaugural Art Browne Memorial Trophy

The match between Best of East vs Best of West truly lived up to the reputation of what Art Browne’s was all about – No Nonsense Cricket, well at least that’s how it started.

And finally the game was the ultimate winner, though the Best of East truly deserved to be the winner and claimed the trophy.

The Best of East was captained by Rajiv Misir and having won the toss he had no hesitation in electing to bat on a pitch, which was still wet from previous days rain. The decision was mainly to make the crowd happy, because in a regular match it did not make sense to bat first when the ball was not going to come to the bat.

The Best of West was captained by Sukjhinder Rana and even the rain gods as paused the whole day to watch duel between S.Rana and J.Rana.

The openers for the East started sedately because the runs were coming in the form of extras. The opening bowlers from west had lot of troubles in controlling the swing due to the cold breeze flowing through the fields. Saqib for the East started with four dot balls and then all of the sudden he switched the gear and played an outstanding cover drive over the point for four runs. He followed it with two beautiful sixes of the same bowler over the cover and the mid off region.

The openers got out after settling down due to the lapse of concentration and the ball not coming to the bat. But Saqib’s batting was outstanding and anything which was over-pitched outside or on the off stump was punished appropriately.

With the loss of Kuldeep wicket J.Rana came into bat, he does not bat in this slot during the regular match, but the intention were clear when he was sent out to bat – entertain the crowd. Then S.Rana came into act and quieted down the whole show. After Saqib got out Ahmad joined J.Rana and there was sensible mix of aggression and taking singles from both these batsmen. J.Rana was very sedate and in the score of 21 he had only two four. But overall he faced most of the fiery deliveries of S.Rana and it was certainly a contest that everybody could enjoy watching. The dual can be best summarized by stating that the best bowler in the division with the best batsmen in the division, in addition to that the drama of younger brother trying to go one up on the elder brother.

After J.Rana got out, the best of East lost two quick wickets in order to speeden up things. Ahmad made 45 and was not out until the end he was the highest scorer of the match and duly deserved the man of the match award.

The Best of East made 136 runs in 29 overs for the loss of 5 wickets. The best of west bowlers, barring S.Rana did not make any impression at all. The target was easily achievable, but with the Waterloo being the home ground for the best of east bowlers it was always going to be difficult for the best of west batsmen. The sun had dried up the pitch and the ball was going to kick faster from the pitch and what needed from the best of west batsmen was application.

The best of east opening bowlers had a blend of youth and sensibility (Sadaqat and Dharmesh). Sadaqat bowled beautifully with lot of passion and pride, he showed variety for the first time in the bowling mixing the deliveries trying to make the batsmen in playing erroneous shot. He tricked the opening batsmen with a bouncer and then followed it by a Yorker after couple of deliveries. Meanwhile Dharmesh used his experience and made Kunal the other opening batsmen play a short early thus ending up in a wonderful catch taken by Saqib. Kunal is a very aggressive batsmen today and looked like he is going to make a big score. The mix of these bowlers worked out to Best of East advantage. From their until 17 overs it was a sedate batting by the best of west batsmen. The bowlers were changed and J.Rana and Rajiv bowled a tight line and length.

Faisal was the only batsmen who showed some applications and rotating the strikes with singles. He was not supported by anybody. From the bowlers Bahadur took 2 wkts and Rajv took 2 wickets. Abu the best of east bowler bowled with lot of varieties, his leg break was causing lot of troubles to the batsmen, and this is mainly because none of the best of west batsmen used their foot work against the spinners. He foxed S.Rana beautifully and cleaned his stumps.

Then for purely entertain value Parveen Sharma (captain of sunrise) who was not playing the match was brought into bowl and he quickly took two wickets to end the best of west innings. The best of west scored 102 and played for 28 overs. The best of west never threatened to take the match away, they played as though the target was far from their reach. The fielding of best of east was outstanding, with young fields like Kuldeep and Saqib controlling the point and the covers and experience fielders like J.Rana and Rajiv controlling the boundary regions.

The teams were pretty sloppy on the field dropping too many catches, it could have been due to the cold weather but both teams dropped some easy sitters.

The best player from east was Saqib, and from the west was Faisal. The man of the match award was given to Ahmad Malik from the east.

The Best of east will hold on to the Art Browne’s trophy for the year 2003.

Swami Iyer

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