The WASHUCC faced SLU for the first official game of the season. It was the first hardball outdoor match for WASHUCC, but was hampered by very wet conditions.

The forecast for the day predicted severe thunderstorms. Nevertheless, eleven people turned out for the match, which consisted of Ali (Co-Captain), Apoorva (Co-Captain), Dillon, David, Ali Khan, Al, Arham, Bilal, Rutvik, and Shehzad.

After winning the toss a , WASHUCC opted to field first. Ali and Rutvik opened the bowling for WASHUCC. As it was the first time that WASHUCC was bowling on a mat during the season, it took time to get used to. SLU openers Vikas and Nitin took full advantage of this and steadily moved on the score. Aloka and Shehzad tried to stem the run rate with a slower medium pace attack, but were hammered by the later batsmen. Shehzad was the main culprit as he gave away nearly 20 runs in his third over to Michael, who was lofting the ball over the boundaries time and time again. However, the innings had to come to a halt, when the light drizzle that was affecting the match from the beginning turned into heavy downpour in the 12th over. SLU's inning came to an end that that point. They had scored a mammoth 116 in nearly 12 overs.

The WASHUCC were faced with a difficult challenge of scoring at a rate of 12 runs per over. Plus, WASHUCC had to face the quick inswingers of Shariq. Shariq started phenomenoly when he bowled both of the openers with four balls and the score on 2. Apoorva saved the day with some clean hitting to lead WASHUCC to a respectable total. He was well supported by Aloka and Ali Khan. Apoorva launched him self into an aggressive attack with four sixes! And he finished with the first half-century of WASHUCC's short history (51). After the 11.4 overs, WASHUCC had finished at 75 runs, a healthy 41 runs behind the target.

WASHUCC had a pretty tough game, in which the top players were unable to attend. Even after that, they were able to give a satisfactory performance with the players they had. Now, WASHUCC knows what to look for in its game-plan and finally get victories.

-Shehzad Siddiqui (October 13, 2001)

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