5th January 2008 was just like any other Saturday morning but afternoon and evening was special Next Generation (NXG) cricket team was playing its first cricket tournament, MINI MAX CRICKET TOURANAMENT 2008 organized by SLWA (Salt Lake Welfare Association).

Now you may ask what is this Mini Max Cricket…It has this name because it was a under-arm tournament , playing area was small and had different run zones like straight drives will fetch you 12 runs mid-on, mid-off, fine leg or backward point will fetch you 8 runs similarly covers and mid wicket will fetch you 6 runs. Another rule that added a lil excitement was hitting the ball directly out of the playing area will result in batsman getting out.

Now, coming back to our matches. Here is our team list (in batting order)

1. Anirudh Lohia
2. Pankaj Periwal
3. Shantanu Tody
4. Sourabh Baheti (c)
5. Sudershan Daga
6. Chetan Mundhra

We were one the best teams playing the tournament. Our first match was with Vasco, and we batted first. First over fetched us 28 runs and we ended up making 171 runs in 5 overs (I know its bit difficult believe but that’s the fact) and defeated the opponents by 98 runs, ideal start to the tournament.

Match 2 (best of all)

Next match was with one of the home teams. We won toss and again elected to bat, but this time round we were all out for 105 runs. One will have to say in this format this was a low score. But we made a point we will not go down without fighting and then it took a spirited effort from everyone to win that game. This meant we were in the second round.

Round 2

This was an easy round as one of the teams who qualified for this round was bellow and par and we stormed into finals beating them with a match to spare.

Finals

The much awaited Big Match. NXG vs. Bengal Tigers. Luck did not favour us this time round with the toss, we were to field first.

It was a dream start for us we had taken 2 wickets in first 2 balls of the match. But the rest as they is history. Bengal Tigers made 134 runs in five overs and we could manage only 86 runs. We had lost the finals by 48 runs.

But at the end of the day for us what mattered to us was we did not go down without fighting. And enjoyed each and every minute we spent in the ground.

Tags: Cricket, floodlights, mini max cricket, NXG