Saturday Cricket League Summer 2012 Championship

Saturday Cricket League – Summer 2012 Championship

Final: League Champion Commentary by: Vasu (EECC)

Teams: EECC (Winner - Division A) vs. WCC (Winner - Division B)

On a cloudy Saturday with the sun not showing any signs of coming up, the super final was to be played between two teams that had a spectacular run through their respective divisions.

EECC and WCC had both lost only one game all through the tournament and had won all their league games pretty comfortably. WCC was the reigning League champion and EECC was a team trying to justify their strong billing on paper.

WCC won the toss and promptly decided to bat first. EECC would have chosen to bat too if they had won the toss. Naushad (the best batsman in Division B) and Najam opened the innings for WCC and Avinash (the best bowler in Division A) started the proceedings for EECC. Avinash bowled an excellent first over and should have had a wicket but for the ball just eluding the outstretched hands of the fielders on a couple of occasions. Sankar the EECC captain started the second over and immediately hit his stride by getting Njzam to knick one to the keeper. After an uneventful but tidy 3rd over by Avinash, Sankar again showed why he is such an excellent new ball bowler by removing 2 more WCC batsmen in his second over. At this point WCC were on their back foot. Naushad and Keyur started the slow process of building the innings back but were kept quiet by all the EECC bowlers who kept the pressure up by bowling to Saturday Cricket League – Summer 2012 Championship their field and maintaining their line and length. At the break, WCC had brought some stability to their innings by not losing any more wickets but were only 47 for 3 at the 12 over innings break.

After the break WCC started to accelerate and scored 18 runs in the next 2 overs and were 65 at the 14 over mark. Then Mahesh bowled Keyur with a beauty that held its line and added another WCC scalp in the same over to make it a double wicket maiden for EECC. This double strike put WCC firmly on the back foot from which they could never recover and in spite of Naushad playing a brilliant lone hand , WCC were bowled out for 117 in the 24th over.

A target of 118 runs in 25 overs was never a tall score for EECC's strong batting line up but EECC wanted to make sure they got to a good start and this was provided by the EECC openers, Sandip and George, who got off to an electrifying start by scoring 20 runs in the first 2 overs. They continued in their aggressive intent and EECC were off to a flying start. George scored a quick fire 20 before edging one to the keeper. Sandip and Vasu consolidated the innings by making sure no more wickets fell till the break. Sandip continued to score at a brisk pace and EECC were 65 for 1 at the 12 over mark.

After the break EECC lost 2 quick wickets in part due to the brilliance of WCC on the field but also due to some poor running between the wickets by the EECC batsmen. Sandip never missed his stride even as wickets fell on the other side and with able support from Gautam played through the innings and took EECC home to their first SCL League Championship game in only their 2nd attempt. Sandip lived up to his billing as a big match player and carried his bat through.

The 2 teams played a hard fought match, never giving an inch but always playing in the right spirit of the game. The match also saw some excellent umpiring from Devon and Herman.

The match was followed by an excellent awards ceremony presided over by the Organizer par Excellence Mr. Muhammad Faisal. EECC would like to thank Mr. Faisal for his excellent organizing skills and also his fairness to all the teams and his mindset of taking useful inputs from all participating teams and incorporating them to make the SCL one of the best organized taped ball tournaments in Houston. There is no other tournament that has 26 teams playing and is organized this efficiently and EECC is proud to be representing SCL as their League Champion.

Division A: Final Commentary by: Venkat (EECC) Teams: EECC vs. KCC

On a bright and sunny Saturday morning (Dec 8th), both EEEC and KCC showed up on time and started with the regular practice sessions prior to the game.

EECC won the toss and elected to bat first. EECC lost both their openers quickly against a very good KCC bowling attack (Riaz, Imtiaz, and Abdullah). However , the experienced EECC batting line-up (Vasu, Mahesh, Venkat, and Avinash) made sure there were no collapses in batting and kept the score moving at over 5 an over. However, EECC lost their way in the last 3 overs of their innings and were all-out for 142 in 24.3 overs. Avinash top scored for EECC with 33 runs. Saturday Cricket League – Summer 2012 Championship

Chasing a very competitive target of 143, KCC opener (Quisar Dar) provided a quick fire 24 to keep the score moving. However, he was caught behind off a beauty from Avinash. Suddenly, KCC were in trouble loosing 4 wickets in quick succession. KCC batsmen (Muzamil & Imtiaz) went into a defensive mode to make sure that no further damage was done with losing another wicket. At the 12 over break, KCC were 52 for 4. After the break, Muzamil and Imtiaz started attacking and tried to up the tempo and the runrate. However, EECC kept taking wickets regularly. Riaz provided the late firework for KCC in the end and looked like winning the game for KCC. However, EECC maintained calm and got KCC all-out for 134. Imtiaz top scored for KCC with 35 runs.

Avinash was the MVP for his all round game (33 runs and 2 wickets).

Division B: Final Commentary by: Naushad (WCC) Teams: JCC 2 vs. WCC

WCC won the toss and elected to bat first on a dry pitch.

Najam fell early in the innings and Shaahil followed him shortly too. Naushad stood at one end but wickets kept on falling at the other end. It was crucial 46 runs for the team.

Zee at the end (power play overs) did a great job to what looked a below par score of around 120 he boost the score to pass 150 with some delightful strokes...good support from Shehbaz at the end.

JCC from the beginning couldn’t keep up with the required run rate. Saurabh kept JCC in the game for a while with his very good 41 but once he got out things looked pretty flat for JCC2.

WCC bowlers restricted JCC2 to 128 with some great overall performance in the bowl. Zee with his all round performance took 3 wickets. But the MVP was Faheem Chippa with his outstanding spell of 5-0- 25-4 He took crucial wickets in the middle of the innings and crashed all the hopes for JCC2.