A glorious Sunday evening in Delhi saw the completion of the first half of the quarterfinals in the third SILF-Khushal Inter Law Firms Cricket Cup – 2011 in Delhi (the “Tournament”) at the Gyan Bharti School Ground with the two favourites, as predicted, going through, albeit in immensely contrasting styles.

The first game of the evening saw Kochhar & Co, mighty after the inflow of new blood into their team, take on what proved to be a hapless Suri & Co in one of the more one-sided encounters of the Tournament. Much like the mighty Australians in their pomp demolishing the helpless Zimbabweans at their weakest there is little to say about this game, other than the fact that it was a fairly indulgent way to spend a Sunday evening for the few die-hard spectators that were spread across the ground.

Batting first, Suri & Co were immediately set back by the loss of early wickets and never recovered over the course of the match. Despite an almost heroic 33 (34) balls from Anupam - a spectacular inning in comparison to the prosaic display from his batting colleagues - Suri & Co were able to limp their way to only a meager 108 in their allotted 20 overs. Vijay, Anuj and Sunil of Kochhar, each took two wickets.

In clobbering their way to a target of 109 in merely 10.4 overs, Kochhar not only triumphed by a resounding 9 wickets, but also sent out a deafening warning to the other teams in the knock-out stages. Kudos to Ishvinder – 49 (27) with 10 fours, Bobby – 21 (15) with 5 fours, and Dhruv – 31 (22), for being able to apply themselves to a small target and wrapping up the match well ahead of schedule.

Fortunately, the second match of the evening first saved and then made this Sunday evening. Batting first, Luthra & Luthra opened with the man in form Hitesh and his surprise partner Karan, who is better known for his bowling than for his batting. The aggressive gambit of putting Karan upfront paid rich dividends with Hitesh (54 in 31 balls) and Karan (18 of 15 balls) getting Luthra off to a breathtaking start, which immediately put Anand & Anand on the backfoot.

Perhaps inspired by the scintillating initial assault by Karan, Luthra captain Amaresh Singh promoted the muscular Ajay Sondhi (at the cost of the heralded Manish and Vikram) up the order to further accelerate the scoring rate. Any qualms that may have existed in the dressing room at this surprise promotion were quickly put to rest by Ajay, who batted like a man possessed by the demons after being consistently penned in at no. 11 on the Luthra batting line up.

Often ungainly, more often brutish and occasionally delicate, Ajay raced to 69 of 38 balls with 10 fours and 1 six, in an outstanding display of controlled pinch hitting.

Having been shaken by this brutal assault, the Anand & Anand bowlers capitulated to concede a further 23 runs in 7 balls to Sachit, who wielded the biggest bat that I have ever seen on a cricket field to outstanding effect, clobbering three towering sixes to put the finishing touches on a complete batting display – Luthra racking up 209 for the loss of 6 wickets in their allotted 20 overs.

Having witnessed a fairly incompetent bowling display, one expected that batting would be the significantly stronger suit of Anand & Anand, for them to have made it this far into this tournament and oh boy, did their batting live up to expectations! Chasing nearly 11 runs an over from the beginning, Anand & Anand opened up with a flurry of stunning boundaries that left no one in any doubt about their belief in being able to hunt down this gargantuan target.

Kuldeep (opening) - undoubtedly the performer of the day – single-handedly threatened to take away the game from Luthra by unleashing a series of strokes combining the very best attributes of all of the Luthra batsmen put together. Helped by some abysmal catching (which Luthra would do well to rectify at the earliest opportunity) and strange offside dominant fields, Kuldeep powered, glided, nurdled, finessed and thrashed his way to a scintillating century of merely 55 odd balls.

Hopes of a remarkable one-man chase were finally quelled in the dying stages, courtesy a moment of inspired brilliance in the field from Sachit, who took a one-handed blinder at long off to silence the raucous Anand & Anand team. With his departure, the game swung Luthra’s way, eventually winning by a margin of around 25 runs – uncomfortably close in the context of this high-scoring encounter.

Anand & Anand has much to be proud of after this display but would do well to further shore up their side with some bowlers for next year’s tournaments. Luthra, outstanding while batting, need to think seriously about their bowling and more so about their field settings to have a chance to progress through to the finals.

In the remaining quarter-finals Amarchand Mangaldas are expected to play Karanjawala while last year’s runners-up Titus & Co may clash with Khaitan & Co but a final confirmation on those line-ups is still pending, subject to net run rate calculations and other numerical wizardry from the organisers.

I expect that next weekend’s fare will follow the same broad storyline as this week with the match between AMSS and Karanjawala promising to be a cracking contest between two very well-equipped teams and the one between Titus and Khaitan threatening to be a dull drab affair dominated by Titus.

While this Tournament would be served well by an upset over the coming weekend, I imagine that Karanjawala and Titus will go through to the semi finals.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author only and Legally India takes no responsibility for anything written in this article or any views expressed herein. The author of this article was formerly with Luthra & Luthra Law Offices, Delhi and any bias apparent in these articles may be attributed to this former association.

Click here for the review of the group stages and the first quarter-final preview.

Photo by TC7