Previous Seasons
Five Highs Carnival: Adelaide. 1st-6th December
Brisbane State High 3/250 (T.Garg 3/39) defeated High 195 (J.Cooper 68, V.Kashyap 31)
After coming second last year the boys were pumped to get off to a good start in the competition and bring the shield home. After losing the toss on a glorious day we were sent in to field and looked to retrict Brisbane stated on what proved to be an absolute road. With eyes set on the bowler of the tournament award Tushaar garg fired up and took the first and only 3 wickets of the innings to end his spell. Now the task was up to the first change and spin bowlers, however dropped catches and our failure to take advantage of our hard work allowed Brisbane to set 250 runs as a total to chase. The chase proved tough as we lost experienced batsman Agnish and Oli early due to their aggressive batting styles. With the rookie, Vivek, required to build partnerships with the middle order, he did exactly that. He stabilised the batting with minor partnerships with Tushaar and Jesse. However he soon fell for 31 but jesse stepped up and demonstrate a true captian’s innings. He batted and batted with the middle order to bring the boys closer to the big total of 250. With the eventual demise of our own captain cool, on 68, the chase ended. Although we didn’t win, we made our highest total this season. We learnt from our mistakes and took an unforgiving attitude to the next game.
High 103 (T.Garg 38) defeated by Adelaide High 3/104 (T.Garg 2/21, V.Avudainayagam 1/15)
High elected to bat on a relatively flat wicket looking to post a commanding first innings total in a fiercely contested Adelaide-Sydney match. After an early breakthrough by the Adelaide attack, Vivek Kashyap continued his run of form at the top of the order with a promising start but unfortunately skyed a straightforward catch to long-on soon after. Oliver Meroni was unfortunate to be bowled leaving the ball, but Tushaar Garg, alongside Jesse, Gautham and Yiu Tao, compiled a solid 38 against a challenging spin attack. After a steady flow of wickets, Vishnu Avudainyagam was unlucky to be adjudged caught behind off his helmet. Sudarshan Arvind and Aditya Koneru sought to prolong the innings but a combination of bad luck and poor shot selection resulted in High setting what would be a sub-par target. Adelaide was sent in to bat 10 overs before the lunch break. High looked for early breakthroughs before the break in order to provide a sense of hope in defending a total of 103 on a flat wicket. Tushaar and Vishnu picked up 2 vital breakthroughs in the 3rd and 4th over respectively, to have Adelaide 2 down for 40 runs at the lunch break. Depite some tight bowling in the middle overs, Adelaide was able to chase down the total with ease in the 30th over, 3 down for 103.
Melbourne High 7/140 (R.Sura 2/28, J.Cooper 2/21) defeated by High 8/141 (A.Nayak 43, T.Garg 29)
After losing our first two games, all of us were determined to give it our all against Melbourne and turn around the tour. The game got off to a hectic start due to rain, and was moved to a synthetic wicket for a 30 over rain reduced match. All of our bowlers bowled well and together with great efforts in the field all round we held Melbourne to 140 (previously 7-108) letting them get away a bit at the end. Jesse and Raunak took 2 wickets each and Sudarshan and Tushaar both bowled very economically. Going in to chase 140, we knew it would have to be about partnerships with Gautham and Vivek both stepping up to put on a solid opening stand, getting us to the 11th over before both were dismissed for 15(47) and 12(22) respectively. Despite their dismissal’s Tushaar and Oliver both put on another good partnership in good time before both went for 29(37) and 14(21), respectively. After Jesse was dismissed we found ourselves with 45 to win with 35 balls to go. Vishnu then fed strike to Agnish for the next 5 overs putting on 38 off 30 before being run out in the last over for 13(11). With 7 needed off the last 5 balls, the incoming batsman Aditya did well to get Agnish on strike with a single. 6 off 2 looked impossible at this stage and after clubbing a 2, the equation became 4 off 1 to win. With everyone on their seats, Agnish delivered an amazing boundary under pressure off the last ball to win us the game, finishing up on 43(36) not out, a match winning performance. Running onto the field, we sang the school song with pride and turned around our tour with performances from everyone within the side.
High 108 (O. Meroni 61) defeated Kent St 94 (T.Garg 5/9, A.Chen 2/26)
Kent St won the toss on a very sticky wicket and sent High in to bat, with Adelaide High students mixed among the crowd. The batsmen were not able to cope with the wicket early on, losing 4 early wickets. Oliver Meroni and Shashank Nampalli then consolidated and saw out the next hour, with Shashank falling last ball before drinks. This partnership saw the pitch harden up and take pressure off the lower order, as well as stopping Kent St’s momentum in it’s tracks. Thanks to Oliver’s balanced batting in his last innings for High, along with a 14-ball 19 by Agnish Nayak saw High ending up on a defendable 108, with Meroni ending up on 61. A fine innings when High needed it most. On the field, High were all guns blazing and pumped for it was the last game together for many of us. With early wickets from Tushaar Garg, High always looked on top. Amazing efforts in the field from the likes of Oliver and Agnish, who were leading the way in their last game ever for High, helped the bowlers consistently take vital middle order wickets. Oliver’s unmatched fielding throughout all four games earned him fielder of the tournament. With four wickets left to take, and less than 35 for Kent St to win, crucial wickets were taken by Tushaar and Sudarshan, with the help of Agnish’s unparalleled miracle catch in the covers. High went on to win by 14 runs, with Vishnu taking the last dismissal (LBW). Tushaar lead the bowling attack taking 5/9, and surpassing Owen Duffy to claim the record for best bowling figures at the annual Five Highs carnival with a fiery 5/9. This bowling effort from Tushaar Garg saw him earn bowler of the tournament, and also earn a place in All Australian Combined XI.
2013 Barberis Cup
Game 1 – Melbourne High 38 (23.4) (K. Agrawal 3/5 [5], T. Moffat 2/5 [4.4], P. Yu 2/5 [3]) defeated by Sydney High 0/41 (16.1) (V. Kashyap 20* [54], V. Nomula 14* [47])
Coming into the series against Melbourne we knew it was going to be tough. With little preparation together as a team against a school that had beaten us for the past four years, we knew we were going to have to play well together. It started off badly, losing the toss and them choosing to bat on a good pitch. However they won nothing else in the first few overs with our two opening bowlers, Tully and Kabir, bowling three maidens in a row before Kabir clean bowled one of their openers. Things continued to go our way with Kabir taking another two wickets and Tully taking another one.
With Melbourne now struggling at 4-9 we were totally on top. Even with the change of bowlers Melbourne were rarely able to find the gaps. Even with the change in bowlers to Manil and Vivek didn’t make scoring easier. The sustained pressure from our bowlers meant there were few bad balls. This meant when the occasional bad ball did come along, they were forced to really swing at it. This led to our 5th wicket with a Vivek full toss being hit in the air straight to mid-wicket. Manil also got in on the action grabbing a wicket for himself. James and Peter were brought on to finish up the tail. Peter’s consistent line and length meant that the batsmen struggled to get any runs at all from his tight line and length. This forced the batsmen to play irrational shots and he took two wickets for himself. James added another wicket to the total with a slower ball that bamboozled the batsmen. Tully bowled out the last batsman and Melbourne was all bowled out for 38.
Going in to bat we knew that it was a good batting deck and along with the great performances of our openers recently, we were raring to go. Our openers saw out the opening bowlers and slowly amassed the forty runs needed. We reached the total without losing a wicket and recorded a massive win and huge confidence boost going into the next game.
Game 2 – Sydney High 4/148 (40) (V. Kashyap 62 [92], V. Nomula 51 [108], S. Nampalli 12 [28]) defeated Melbourne High 81 (35.3) (R. Hossain 3/7 [6], E. Hall 3/9 [8], L. De Silva 2/18 [5])
Having completely dominated the first game we knew that we had to continue our form and not let the series slip away from us. We knew we were the better team but we still had to prove it. Having finally won a toss, we went in to bat full of confidence. The slow outfield of McKay meant that boundaries were hard to come by. However this did not affect our openers whose quick running between wickets mean that run rate stayed high. Viveks high energy levels at the crease meant we were able to get singles even when the ball was hit straight to the fielder.
At first drinks we were 0-42 and looked set to take a commanding hold of the match. After seeing off the opening bowlers they continued to accelerate the run rate. Both openers continued there quick running between wickets that kept the run rate above 3 an over but were still having trouble finding the boundary. On numerous occasions a beautiful pull through midwicket from Vishal fell agonisingly short of the boundary. However this did not stop them scoring freely and both openers continued to cleverly wor the bowlers around.
With both openers approaching 50, Vivek began to accelerate and managed to get to his 50 in style. He started taking chances after his milestone, coming down the wicket to the spinner and smashing back over his head. Just when it seemed like Melbourne wouldn’t take a single wicket all tour, we were hit with incredible bad luck. A beautiful Vishal straight drive went straight and flicked the bowlers hand on the way past before it crashed into the stumps. Vivek who was backing up was run out. There was nothing he could do and it was the only way Melbourne looked like getting him out. Vishal managed to reach his 50 before he fell to poor shot. Unfortunately the run rate slowed dramatically after the dismissal of our two openers. Both Shanshank and Karthink attempted to lift the run rate but it wasn’t enough.
Having bowled Melbourne out for a mere 38 last game we knew that as long as we bowled like we did last game we would win. Melbourne were not messing around this time though, opening the batting with their best two batsmen. Although we knew that as soon as we could get a break through here, the rest of the wickets would come quickly. However when our pace attack failed to do this things started to look better for Melbourne. While they were below the required run rate they still ad not lost a wicket so we turned to spin.
Eli managed to get the breakthrough, dismissing the top three batsmen. Raphin also got in on the action, bagging 3 wickets for himself as well thanks to the great wicket keeping of Tully. With the fast bowlers brought on to clean up the tail we knew we had the game in the bag. With one wicket left to grab to bring home the Barberis Cup we brought on our usual wicket keeper Shashank to bowl. A long hop from Shashank was belted at Manil who took an amazing diving catch to win the game and the series.