Cardinals Cricket Club, Des Moines

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Champions 2022 Iowa Premier League

The cardinals legacy

So I was thinking, where to *begin*. I didn’t believe it is already time for a review but well it is. So here it is another boring summary by me, yet every word of it hold true regarding our T20 Cardinals Campaign.
It all began with a question, T20 cardinals team for leather ball? Well there was no hesitation in the group where we had an overwhelming support from everyone and we looked in shape to build a team in no time. This just shows how great this group is where they show cased support in adventuring unknown territories (not cricket) but season ball cricket.
On day 1 of our first game, I am sure everyone had butterflies, if not a whole butterfly garden in the stomach. It was real, we all shared same feeling on the ground, anxious, nervous, happy all at same time.
So, it all *begins* here. Talk about grit and growth, look no further down than our openers of T20 campaign. I remember our captain giving his initial speech just couple mins before the innings began. In his words “It is our first outing as team, just go out there and enjoy your time. I don’t mind if you score 50 runs or 60 runs but all I want from our team is to bat the full 20 overs and I don’t want to see a wicket fall in the first 4 overs.” There it is for the team to go ahead and apply his words on field, simple right(sounds) but not quite when you have to execute! We are facing one of the finest bowling attacks that has perfectioned the game over years, likes of Raju bhai, Usman bhai, Viru bhai and young talent like Mojib and Atchuta.
So our openers are facing great music from these guys, but it is not all it. Our openers have showed their grit & patience. They achieve first target 4 overs no wickets down for 9 runs, followed by 7 overs 24/0 a mere 3.33 runrate. As the game progressed our first wicket fell at 14.3 @ 93/1 which is great achievement for a young team playing first game. Eventually team went on to score 122/4 in 20 over at 6 runs per over. This is where our first round of applause comes in for our openers Addy & Sharat who were outstanding on the day and to take their captains words and script the game exactly if not even better than anticipated. Both of you have showed great strength and character to lead the team from front. And yet set up a new record in T20 that an opener played all 20 overs and remained not out. Well done guys👏👏👏!!! We have done well in the first half and 2nd half of the game, however fell short of tricks with Raju bhai and Mojib taking full control of the game. Another stand out in the game was facing firing Yorkers and bouncers from Mojib, if we think his bouncers are difficult wait until you see his Yorkers👌!! He was truly gold that day both with bat and ball. This was a great (first) learning game for us. I like to throw few applauses for Satheesh who is up to the task taking the new ball and bowling such good line and length from get go, amazing!!👏👏 And one more clap for our Captain Apoorv who lead us beautifully despite a bothering stiff neck, not only turned up for the game, but lead the team by showing confidence in all his players.👏

Now is the right time to recognize few key individuals who made our T20 launch such success. We should all recognize Viru bhai and Raju bhai for all their kindness and big heart in allowing us to practice with their camp. Not only practice, they indeed helped us with batting and bowling tips. I believe, things would have been awry if it was not for their big welcoming heart. Big Applause to those two👏👏👏!!!

Fast forward to next week, there was washout which brings us to current day! What a day it has been! I guess every day of the week weather report showed there is Rain in the forecast which means another washout..this time not just a game but it meant washout of our cardinals t20 outing for this year! Luckily, NO, I say “Fortunately” weather turned out good for our game so here we are at Ames! Toss wasn’t in our favor but as I mentioned earlier “Fortunately” opposition team asked us to bat first! Our openers didn’t get much to score on this occasion, lost two wickets inside 5 overs. There are three key phases in our today’s match 2 batting partnerships b/w Anirudh & Yeshwanth, and Apoorv & Naveen, followed by absolute good spell by Yeshwanth.
Anirudh & Yeshwanth quickly assessed the game and worked in singles and doubles and took the score 64 in 11 overs just under 6 runs an over. Best part of their batting was their communication between overs. These guys complimented each other very well and ran hard for each other…good job guys👏. Then comes in our captain and man of the hour/day Apoorv 😊 As he walked in, he made sure to run hard and take 1’s & 2’s in the next couple of overs and kept the score card ticking adding 32 runs partnership with Jitu. Apoorv ensured that our bowlers have something to defend on the board by reaching 100 in 16 overs. So far, he was batting fluently, striking ball well, picking odd boundary and running hard keeping strike…there was certain calmness in his approach until now🙂. He had different plans for the later part of his innings! In 17th over Apoorv unleased into beast mode, this one was truly beauty and the beast as he amassed 3 sixers in one over…depositing all three long over deep mid-wicket. These three shots were a carbon copy, ball after ball..such is the skill of the bastman, signature flourish of a great entertainer🙌! That was truly genius. Well he isn’t done there..he has a partner that he is still running in for and taking singles which means Naveen on the other end is suddenly on the strike in 19th over! If the fireworks from Apoorv were not enough to entertain, Naveen’s sublime timing of the balls to hit two fours on long off was a treat to watch👍. His timing is impeccable and b/w the two scored 16 runs in 19th over. Into the 20th over Apoorv, continued his rampage along with Naveen and scored boundaries on last three balls, including a boundary by Naveen off the first ball, scoring 24 runs in the over which set the target of 171 runs in 20 overs. *Apoorv 76(37b 3x4 6x6), Naveen 16(7b 2x4) together scored 63 runs in 3 overs*🤝🏻
Rest was easy for the team to defend the total when you have a calculated Captain on field, we still had good bowling display from Satheesh, Apoorv and Yeshwanth who all bowled beautifully at difficult times of the game.
Key point to recognize here is . Believe in one self and team that we can succeed together. That belief has shown results today which gave us sweet ever lasting memory of first leather ball win for cardinals in the first season.

I guess that brings us to the end of the novel, although we didn’t qualify to the play offs for various other reasons outside our control, I like to say I see great spirit in each player in our team. We should keep the same tenacity for next season and come up with more such performances. Keep the fire & desire alive to excel and come together as a team next season! Well played all…this summary is for every player in our Cardinals group, not just for those who played a part in one or the two games instead for every player who joined forces to make this team stand.
Apoorv, Sharat, Dinesh, Addy~ thanks for thinking of Cardinals leather ball team and making it a reality.

Well now there are few more things to say like it was good to see people coming out of comfort zone and showing up for practice, for many this is first time playing leather ball so good job👍 Words won’t do justice to the support & interest displayed. Keep coming back on field and keep sharing good moments with all of us. Play together, enjoy each other success as (y)ours.

Cardinals The Year 2018: Brilliant WIN & A Brilliant 50

Party day

The 2017 Cardinals team (Royal + Elites)