TCC Taped Ball Premier Tournament Spring 2017 Cougars Winners, CJCC Runners up

HOUSTON: Cougars Cricket Club won their 5th and one of the most memorable TCC championship trophy by defeating Cliff Jumpers Cricket Club (CJCC) by 53 runs to be crowned as Champions of TCC Taped Ball Premier Tournament Spring 2017 played amongst top 14 division 1 teams. It required a miraculous turnaround of winning 7 consecutive matches with every match like a knockout for Cougars after they were languishing at the bottom of table with 3 points after 5 out of 7 league games to win the championship. CJCC had a great tournament ending up as Runners up in just their second TCC taped ball tournament. The level of competition in TCC Taped Ball tournaments is of the highest order.

On a beautiful Saturday morning on 17 June 2017, Cougars won the toss and elected to bat first. Their openers Rahil Shah and Ashwin Tandon gave a solid platform continuing where they left from in semis as Cougars reached 78-0 at the end of 10 overs. After the break, with wickets in hand both openers picked up momentum to score at more than 10 runs per over to put up a record opening partnership of 150 runs at the end of 16 overs when Rahil had to retire hurt. Raj Singh joined Ashwin to provide required fireworks at the end hitting two huge sixes to end the innings as Cougars reached a mammoth 189-1 at the end of 20 overs with Ashwin (80) and Rahil (74) doing the bulk of the scoring.

With a huge total to chase, CJCC started aggressively against a bowling line up in top form. One of the openers, Anil scored 17 runs in 10 balls but Cougars kept rotating their bowlers (Prashant, Subbu and Krishna) and stuck some crucial blows to restrict CJCC to 32-3 after the first power play of 4 overs. Vijay joined in and continued his good form CJCC reached 71-3 after 10 overs. With required rate close to 12, Cougars’ bowlers came back strongly to take some quick wickets to take the chase away from CJCC even as Vijay was holding one end up and kept scoring. The total was 103-6 in 15 overs and ended up at 136-9 at the end of 20 overs. Cougars became the champions amid joyous celebrations lifting the cup for the 5th time. Vijay was the top scorer for CJCC with well compiled 53. For Cougars, Subbu and Krishna were the pick of the bowlers taking 3 and 2 wickets respectively.

The game was followed by a well-organized prize distribution ceremony arranged by TCC. TCC and teams were honored to have Mr. Golam Mohammad Nousher, former Bangladeshi cricketer, team manager and selector as the chief guest. He was felicitated by TCC with a plaque for his contribution to cricket in Houston especially youth cricket. He spoke about his passion for cricket and how pleased he was to find so much cricket activity in Houston and lauded the efforts for TCC for youth cricket. Jagadish Biradar, the organizer for TCC Taped Ball tournament coordinated the presentation ceremony.

Ashwin Tandon, the captain of Cougars Cricket Club was presented with the championship trophy and Vinodh Vemireddy, the captain of CJCC was presented with the runners up trophy. The players of the Winners and Runners up teams up received individual trophies. Man of the match for the final was Ashwin Tandon from Cougars for his brilliant knock of 80.

Vijay Narayana from CJCC won the best batsman trophy for scoring 287 runs. Best Bowler trophy was shared by Subbu Upadhya from Cougars, Anurag Srivastava from R2CC and Ravi Posam from CJCC with each of them taking 15 wickets. Rahil Shah from Cougars won the trophy for Best all-rounder scoring 273 runs and 14 wickets. Arun Anthony from Surya won the best wicket keeper for 27 catches and special awards were given to Shaahil Palooba from Super Kings and Alpesh Dadhalwala from HCCC for taking hat-trick.