Just like the proverbial London bus, the second one followed immediately after the first one. We won the tournament again this year.
We started the tournament disastrously - losing miserably against the eventual runner-up. Not only that, there were a lot of words exchanged during that game, primarily because we were responsible behind ousting them in the semi-final last year (in a tense bowl-out). The other team were hurting and when they won convincingly, they gave us an earful abt what they felt.
The next game was against a kids team on a freezing day. We were too easy on the kids and eventually our skipper had to give us another piece of his mind to ensure that we win the game.
The 3rd game went till the last over. At one point, the opponent was down and dusted with 40/4 in 10 overs but recovered to make 139/2 in 20. We needed 42 off 3 overs with 6 wickets down and then smashed the hell out of 2 overs to win with 5 balls to spare.
Lost the 4th game by some stupid batting and had to depend on rains and other results to fall in place for us to make it to the quarterfinals.
Somehow, everything worked out for us from then onwards. Played out of our skins in the quarterfinal and won by just 2 runs. The opposing team put us under so much pressure but we just held firm, 1 ball at a time. Eventually, winning by just 2 runs.
Semifinal was even difficult. We were done with abt 5 down in 3 overs but smart batting by lower order got us a tricky total. We bowled like possessed bowlers and won the game by 20 runs.
I had tickets for Panthers-Falcons game at Charlotte, but eventually made the hard decisions to not let the team down. Played the semi-final instead and won it for the team. Could not play the final, but then, our team was well set by then.
Played the Final against the same team as the first game and won very convincingly. We did not utter a word in retaliation. The pictures say it all, more than a 1000 words this time.
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