Day 1 - An affair with the fog

NPL 5.0 started off with a bang this weekend with all the 5 teams in the competition getting a taste of the action. Everyone's already playing the guessing game, trying their best to predict this year's champion.
Saturday saw temperatures reach as low as 5 degrees at 8:30 am in the morning! There was a thick fog cover over the ground which caused a delayed start. Nevertheless, no amount of fog or cold could dampen the spirits of the players and the show was on. It went on something like this.

LBC v/s Dabangg

The first match up was between LBC (Love, Beep aur Cricket) and Dabangg (no..seriously thats the name of the team!!). 

LBC has always been a dangerous team. In their old avatars, throughout the NPL tournaments, they have been notorious for their "wild" banters on and off the field. They have constantly been in the midst of action in terms of results. They came third in the first two seasons and as runner ups in NPL 3.0. 

Dabangg always held high expectations right from season 1. However, they never could make their venture successful till now. They have been part of many upsets...with them being in the wrong end of the upset.

Anyways, LBC won the toss and elected to field. They restricted Dabangg to a modest total of 63. Compared to the high scoring matches we have seen on the Billa Bong ground, 63 in 10 overs was definitely not competitive. But no one could bet on it because of the ground conditions. Piyush was excellent on the field taking 3 wickets and giving away only 16 runs from his 3 overs. He also featured in the run out of Dharmendra.Ably supported by Girish, they prevented from Dabangg going all...well.."Dabangg" on the field. 

Chasing 63, LBC were always gonna be favourites, unless there was a collapse. They started nervously with Amit Singh falling to Pravar after facing just 7 balls. But Sachin, Piyush and Amit Anand stabilized the innings and reached the target in 8.1 overs. Piyush provided some fireworks at the end hitting consecutive boundaries and re-enforcing his reputation as a monstrous hitter of the ball.

Sholay Reloaded v/s BoB

The next match was between Sholay Reloaded (another bollywood crazy team) and BoB (dont search for the missing O..its not a typo...BoB stands for Block or Bleed you perverts!). 

Sholay Reloaded is a team with many new faces and full of young blood. In their old avatars they have had names like WIN (What's in a name) in the 1st season and WON in the 2nd season. Its another story that they dint "win" or "won" those 2 seasons. However, they were a part of the biggest "alliance" in NPL called Flame. Teaming up with the EMPD team, they finally ended up winning NPL 4.0. This time around, all the old faces have given way to newer ones. It would definitely be exciting to watch them.

BoB has been a seasoned campaigner right since NPL began, winning 2 out of the last 4 tournaments. They boast of a fiery bowling attack and have won with the biggest of margins in NPL. But they also have a reputation of losing out very unexpectedly. In a sense, they play like their name. 

Anyways, Sholay Reloaded started batting first. BoB started off well with Subhash taking a wicket in the very first over itself, dismissing Sumit for a duck. Sholay was pushed back to their crease from the initial spells of BoB's bowlers. However, they got away to an extent in the middle overs due to too many extras being bowled and some nice batting by Ratnesh. He top scored with 23. Apart from him, nobody else really looked to do any damage. The best moment of the match was BoB's female over. Gunjan gave away just 4 runs from her over (of which 3 were wides)..so basically...just 1 run off the bat. To rub it in, she also took a wicket. Sholay Reloaded ended up with 67 runs at the end of 10 overs.

BoB started off with Himanshu Shivhare and Sanjay Kumar. Things were looking to be all set for BoB when they suddenly lost 3 quick wickets. Both the openers and the captain Deepak Pant fell in quick succession all thanks to some nice bowling from Abhinav Mishra and Ratnesh. However, Subhash and Himanshu Shivnani did the rescue act and constantly made sure that they were above the required run rate. They eventually reached the target in the second last over itself.  

At the end of the first day, BoB and LBC both registered their wins pretty comfortably.