CXC Cricket Xtreme Club

What a cricketing season it was for CXC this year! 🏏

Started off with a few net sessions in Sep and Oct 2022 before we enrolled for a few tournaments.

Sharing a few highlights of the season:

Oct - Nov 22 - JFSC White ball tournament @ Shivaji Park - Platinum Finalists - Runners Up (White ball)

Feb - Apr 23 - JFSC Classic League - Platinum Finalists - Winners (Red ball)

March 23 - CXC internal game between CXC Blue v CXC Orange - Cricket is the winner! 🤣😀 (Red ball)

April 23 - One day test match - Winners (Red ball)

April - May 23 - Dreams Cup tournament - Finalists - Winners (White ball)

Won a few one off matches in between as well!

Sharing a picture dump of the season with all of our well wishers!

Can't wait for the next season to begin, until then keep playing and be fit during the off season! 🏏🏋💪🎾⚽🏸

Cheers!

Note: Platinum finalists are two teams who have been at the top of the table after the league stages.

What a day of cricket, correction Test cricket!

Brilliant all round performance by our team, CXC today..

Wonderful knock of 157* by Siddhant Narayan batting at number 4

Great bowling spells by pace spearheads Anish Morkhia and Sagar Kapadia

Shikhar Mehta and Manish Solanki spun a web!

Well lead Shreyans Mehta !!!

CxC won by the first innings lead and almost won outright with 2 wickets remaning to be taken of the opposition in the second innings until the play had to be stopped.

MoM: for his brilliant knock

Well played boys of Borivli United 11 Shashank Chaubey Sooraj Mukundan Arun Rawat and team..

Josh was v high Sir!!

“The key is not the will to win…everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.” ~ Bobby Knight

April 1st, 2023
*CxC vs GEP – Platinum Finals – Classic League 3.0*
*Fatima Ground, Vidyavihar*
CxC started the tournament with an unusual loss in the first game but came back strongly in the following 2 matches winning it convincingly, thereby qualifying for the third consecutive Platinum finals.
We did not have a few of our regular star players like Varun, Jay, Shwet, Rajdip and likes for the first 3 games and thus, it was a real challenge to arrange new players from outside the club.
Saturday afternoon game meant that we had to play in this unbearable heat and humidity and so, it was important to stay hydrated and fit.
As usual, Sagar, our captain for this tournament, was late and he called me and informed that Tejas had banged his car and they are trying to “sort” the situation with cops (Sagar – you should try a career in script writing for movies, believe me, you will manage to fool the audience well with your story telling)!!. Only 3 of us were at the ground at the start and thus, it meant that I had to go for the toss and luckily, I called it right and had no hesitation in choosing to bat first on that wicket. I watched the second innings of the first game and knew that it is a low and slow wicket where batting won’t be easy as the game progresses. So, runs on board especially in a final game will be worth the weight of Shri Padmanabhaswamy temple treasure!!!
Daksh and I opened the innings and unfortunately, due to a bad misunderstanding, I ran out Daksh which was very disappointing ( I owe you a beer Daksh, sorry once again ☹!). Bad bad start especially in a final game but I was relieved to see my old opening partner Shwet walking in. I have always felt a lot of calm when I batted with Shwet over the years. We understand each other’s game well and complement well except that my only concern with Shwet is that he won’t run! Damn!! And so, I got to be careful before calling for that second or third run!
Shwet started off quite confidently with his usual punches, flicks and drives and both of us decided to build a steady partnership and lay a good foundation for the rest of our batters. We were scoring at 6.5-7 runs per over. The GEP bowlers were also bowling a tight line and length and mixing it up well with cutters and slower balls which made it tough to score freely on that wicket. We ran well between the wickets and I also hit a couple of boundaries square on the off side. The GEP team had a good left arm spinner named Ksh*tij who was brought into the attack and he was bowling well until I hit him over long on for a six, which ironically was the only six of the innings!! Ksh*tij trapped Shwet LBW in the 12th over and CxC was 87/2 with Shwet scoring 44 crucial runs. In walked Anish and I advised him to take sometime to understand the pace of the wicket and then go for it. Anish was placing the ball well in between the fielders and we ran 3 twos in that heat and by that time, I was completely exhausted. Anish, while trying to flick one through the leg side off the left arm spinner, got an outer edge and was caught reducing the score to 95/3 at the end of 14 overs. The next batsman was TJ who has a good reputation of hitting huge straight sixes off spinners, which he did so well in the second game at Khalsa where he hit 44 runs off 16 balls! He exactly tried to replicate that innings by attempting to hit one straight off Ksh*tij but was caught in the long off boundary. With the score at 97/4 in the 15th over, it was important to again stitch a partnership. What I realized is that the new batsman is finding it tough out there and so it was important for me to carry on and score swiftly. Sagar, our captain, came into the crease and we started to again build a partnership. We ran well between the wickets and Sagar also edged a couple of boundaries off their innocuous yet effective, military medium pace bowlers! At the end of 17 overs, I also trying to hit one out of the park got LBW! The humidity and running between the wickets had taken a toll on me and though tried my hard to up the ante, failed to do so and was back into the hut after scoring 42 runs. CXC was 127/5 at the end of 17.5 overs. Sagar also got out trying to hit one over the covers and CxC score remained at 127/6 at 18.3 overs after scoring 17 runs and the next batsman, Sidhant also got bowled off the very next ball reducing to 127/7 at 18.4 overs. GEP’s fast bowler, Roshan Gowda was bowling some serious pace and was putting a break on our scoring rate. In walked Bhaumik and he also lost his wicket soon in the first of ball of the last over trying to hit one out of the park. Rahi came in to bat in the last over and was playing well. He and Bhavin ran well and Rahi finished with a boundary of the last ball taking the score to 139/8 at the end of 20 overs which meant GEP had to score 140 to win this match and CxC had to defend those runs to break their jinx of the platinum finals.
At the team huddle, Sagar made it clear that we have to make this target of 140 look like 200 and so our bowlers especially spinners had to bowl well and the fielders had to catch almost everything including taking half chances.
Anish started the proceeding with the new ball and initially got hit for a boundary and six but came back strongly to dismiss their opener in the last ball of the third over. Sagar shared the new ball with Anish and was bowling a disciplined line and length not giving any room for the batsman to hit. In the last ball of the 5th over, Sagar stuck with a beautiful catch taken by Bhavin at point reducing the score of GEP to 23/2 at the end of 5 overs. Our leading spinner of the tournament, Yash Shah was brought in to the attack and straight away he got a wicket, once again off the last ball of his over with score reading 28/3 at the end of 6 overs. Our veteran spinner, Manish Bhai was handed the ball from the other end and he was finding it tough initially to get his usual release but was still disciplined enough to not give away more than 7 runs in his over. Yash came back again and got one more, this time a brilliant stumping done by Bhaumik, with score of GEP reading 36/4 in the 8th over. In the huddle, Sagar kept stressing on the fact that we should not take anything lightly as it’s a low scoring game and 1 or 2 batsmen could change the game in no time. Manish came back for his second over and struck off his very first ball cleaning the timber! GEP were 36/5 and in deep rat hole to say the least! Rahi Shah was soon brought into the attack and he was bowling beautifully and giving a lot of flight inducing a false stroke from the batsman. Eventually, that is what happened and the batsman gave an easy catch to Anish and Rahi scalped his first wicket. Bhavin was also brought into the attack from the other end. His running speed was faster than the bowling speed making it tougher for both the batsman and our keeper Bhaumik to pick him. He also got a wicket off a “Slow, Slower, Slowest” cutter which pitched in the middle of the pitch and the batsman got bowled! Watch the video and you will see that even Bhavin could not control laughing at himself for that ball! GEP were 65/8 at this stage which ensured that CxC cannot lose from this stage unless of course there is some miraculous innings. Cricket, as they say, is a funny game and so, we knew that at no stage we can take anything lightly. Sagar kept marshalling his bowlers well and his field placements were also interesting. I remember an instance clearly where Rahi wanted me to be at deep square leg little finer but Sagar wanted me to be squarer. Rahi was not very happy with it but I knew what Sagar was trying here. He was giving an open challenge to the batsman to try sweeping Rahi which was not at all an easy option with the way he was bowling. Rahi managed to get one more wicket in the process. Both Anish and Sagar came back in to the attack and there was a short partnership of 30 runs before Sagar scalping the 9th wicket with score at 96/9. The innings finally ended at 111/9 with CxC winning the game comfortably by 28 runs!
CxC finally breached the jinx of the platinum finals and we finally lifted that WINNERS cup this time. There was celebration and happy (*relieved*) faces all around and Sagar invited Anish to join him to lift the Winners cup, a gesture which was very thoughtful! Sagar was declared the Man of the match but he instead decided to dedicate that award to his two spinners Yash and Rahi who bowled very well.

*Special mention of Yash who was brilliant throughout the tournament*
*Special thanks to Dhruv who played in first 2 matches, Vishnu, Sajjan, Bhaumik and Gunjan who played for us in this tournament and did well*
*It was such a convincing win that that the opposition captain was very impressed by the way we played and he enquired if he can get an opportunity to play in our team sometime*

@⁨Sagar CxC⁩ - Well lead in this tournament!!

Finally, we missed you Shreyans in the finals and we hope to play more tournaments and win it! (Manish Bhai was not wanting me to write this in the summary!) :P :P

*CXC is now gearing up to play the first inaugural 1 day test match at Kaveerni on April 7th and until then, stay fit and have a good evening*

Hope you enjoyed reading the match summary!

Cheers! :D

AB

So, CxC playing the JFSC Platinum Final this Saturday at the scenic Chereshwar ground in Trombay.

We face Yes Bank CC in the Finals.

The match starts at 9 AM.

We will share the YouTube Live streaming link when available!

So far in the tournament,

Game 1: CxC beat KCC
Game 2: CxC beat Poddar Phatoms
Game 3: CxC beat Misfits
Game 4: CxC beat KCC @ Fatima (Semis)

All the 4 matches were won chasing!

What should we do in the finals? Set up a score or chase? Let us know!

CxC Squad: Shreyans Mehta, Anish Morkhia (C), Manish Solanki, Ashwin Balakrishnan, Sagar Kapadia, Rajdeep Gajjar, Shwet Patel, Daksh Galhotra, Varun Kampani, Jay Shah, Bhavin Atul Jani, Achuthan Suresh, Rahi Shah, Atmiya Bakhda, Yash Shah,

Gaurav Chichani shah - your contributions in the first game won't be forgotten!

We need your support fans!

Cheers,

CxC Management.

Tournament name: JFSC Classic 5.0
Date: 9 April 2022
Venue: Fatima Cricket Ground, Ghatkopar
Cricket Xtreme Club (CxC) v Kensington Cricket Club (KCC)
T20 Red ball cricket
Finally, after a lot of discussions and deliberations, we decided to enrol for a tournament after almost 4 long years and boy the wait was worth it! You will soon find out.
It was a bright summer morning in Mumbai and CxC was gearing to play the first match of the tournament. It was an afternoon game and so the players had to be prepared to face some heat, quite literally!
We had a new captain in Anish M aka NK with our regular captain, Shreyans missing the game! We played two new players in Mukesh Patel who is opening batsman and keeper and Gaurav Chichani who is a bowling all-rounder. This was a forced change as few regular CxC players were not available!
It was toss time and KCC won the toss and elected to bat first.
The pattern of bowling was we bowl 10 overs from pavilion end and the next 10 overs from other end.
Anish started the proceeding from the pavilion end with the new red cherry and was immediately getting the ball to shape away. Rohit Seshadri and Tenzing Niyogi opened the batting for KSC. Bhavin bowled the next over. Both openers started decently scoring boundaries at every opportunity. The pitch was as flat as the Pune Mumbai express way and so the bowlers had to hit the right line and length if they had to create some kind of trouble for the batsman. Anish introduced Rajdip as well the third pacer and it was Rajdip who got us the first breakthrough in the 5th over getting a dangerous looking Rohit bowled. The next batsman was Kunal Chandawala and he started off aggressively. Both Tenzing and Kunal were batting with intent dispatching bad balls to boundaries. Our veteran spinner Manish Bhai was also introduced and we observed that he was getting the ball to spin from good length. Things slightly got slowed down and that put some pressure on the batsmen and just when they tried to steal a second run after hitting to long off, Bhavin threw one bullet at the keeper’s end resulting in a run out! KCC losing their other opener and were 72/2 in the 10th over. Himmat Obhan walked in next. Anish was marshalling his troops well and was moving the field well. Our other spinner, Rahi was introduced as well and he was also bowling well. Rahi struck his 1st wicket getting Kunal bowled for 21 runs with KCC at 76/3. Two quick wickets and CxC were very much in control. In walked Amit Dahiya. Both the new batsman had to stitch a partnership at that stage else the game was drifting away quickly from them with tight bowling from CxC spinners with introduction of young Rahil, the 3rd spinner! The batsmen were trying to be busy at the crease taking single/double and few odd 4s in between. Just when things were looking to get settled, Rahi struck with a loopy off spinner wherein the batsman tried to hit him over covers but mish*t and AB caught it running in and ended it with an animated celebration (even he could not believe he caught it!! ). KCC at 99/4 at the end of 12.4 overs were in some kind of trouble. In walked Lakshya with a clear “lakshya” of batting through and taking their team to a reasonable target which could challenge a formidable CxC batting line up. Manish stuck this time getting Himmat bowled for 15 runs in the 15th over. In walked Viraj Sawant. With 5 overs to go, Anish brought in the seamers again with the introduction of Gaurav Chichani. GC bowled a brilliant 1st over giving away only 2 runs. Lakshya started playing some shots to other pacers and in GC’s second over, he tonked few sixes and 4s. Rajdip bowled the last over and KCC ended at 177 at the end of 20 overs.
It was a decent bowling effort considering the hot conditions and the flat pitch!
CxC opened with AB and Mukesh. The message was clear from the captain that this target is surely achievable as it is a very flat track and also since we have a v good batting line up with enough fire power and depth. The openers started cautiously but lost an early wicket with Mukesh trying to glide one to third man getting caught in the 2nd slip. In walked Shwet! Both Shwet and AB had to bat sensibly and build a partnership and set things up for the chase. They negotiated well punishing the bad balls with boundaries and odd sixes off Shwet’s bat. Considering the square boundaries were big, they ran well and converted single to double and sometimes triple. Shwet kept pepping AB in the middle to just keep batting as they were going well and the opposition was slowly starting to feel frustrated. Just when things were going well, AB got out after a steady 34 runs, caught at deep square leg. In walked Achuthan Suresh aka Achu. Shwet at the other end was batting beautifully and completed his 50 in 35 odd balls. Achu trying to heave one out of the park found an edge and got out caught behind without troubling the scorers much. Our captain walked in next. Shwet also lost his concentration and got out soon after a well-made 53 runs in the 15th over. Soon Rahil also got out and suddenly, CxC were in some sort of trouble at 122/5 in 16th over. GC walked in next and got out soon as well for just 1 run. CxC were in serious trouble now needing more than 50 runs in 23 balls! There was silence in the CxC camp now as it was looking really tough at that position. In walked Jay Shah and even he was feeling the pressure missing to connect first few balls. Anish was watching all this unfold from the other end and was still looking determined and positive. Jay soon caught some momentum and struck a 6 and 4 in one over and soon there was some ray of hope felt. Anish also started to strike well hitting a long 6 over deep midwicket. Jay Shah soon got out after scoring an important 19 runs off 12 balls in the penultimate over. In walked Rahi and all he had to do was to give maximum strike to Anish.
It was the last over with CxC still needing 22 runs off it and Lakshya was bowling. Anish hit the first ball to long off and did not run sending Rahi back, who was almost shaking his hands with batsman at the other end. The next ball was hit again straight and Rahi got run out at nonstrikers end while trying the second run. Bhavin walked in next with a lot of determination pepping up Anish to go for it. Now with 21 runs needed of 4 balls, it was looking almost impossible (but not for one man!). In came the bowler with the 3rd ball and BANG, a huge 6 from Anish’s bat! The dressing room roared and there was real hope again. The bowler was under pressure and Anish was looking as cool as a gola of Juhu beach! In came the 4th ball and was a wide. The bowler came running in again and BAAAAMMM! Another 6 this time longer than the previous and there was unbelievable scenes in the dressing room with AB asking everyone to be wherever they are and not moving anywhere else. Rahi shouting with enthusiasm “Cmon Mote” and while all this was happening, Anish was in a different planet almost deciding the perfect script like his cricket hero MSD! With just 2 needed of last ball, the fielders were brought in. The last bowl was bowled at the pads and this time Anish placed it perfectly in the gap on the leg side and it was a 4! CxC won an impossible chase. Celebrations began in the CxC camp with everyone running into the field to hug Anish. It was a dream to imagine such a dramatic finish!
Anish was very rightly adjudged the man of the match for his MSDisque finish at the end!
CxC won their first match of the tournament and there were happy faces on the ground and whatsapp groups with everyone appreciating the unreal effort!
Hope you all enjoyed reading the summary, until next, take care and keep believing!
Cheers,
AB!

1 dominating century; 2 skillful bowling spells; 3 MoMs in 3 different games and 4 talented debuts for CXC today !

What an Xtreme day !

An auspicious start for the club on this Dusshera !

Boys glittering in their new jerseys, thanks to Aar Kay Sports for the beautiful Blue and Gold kit! And to back it up, gave a sparkling performance with 100 run victory !

Shwet scoring an unbeaten 100! AB scoring a beautiful 50 and Manish bhai wrapping it up with an unplayable 4 wicket haul !

Happy Dussehra everyone ! We all wish you lots of happiness and success ! Hope to play with you soon !