TCC Premier Tournament Fall 2020: Cougars Winners, CSK Runners Up

Houston: Cougars were crowned as the champions of TCC Taped Ball Fall 2020 on November 21, 2020 defeating CSK by 5 wickets in a very tightly contested low scoring match thereby claiming their eighth Championship in TCC Taped Ball Tournament in their 12th final. They now have the highest number of Championships. This was the first final for CSK. It was a highly competitive tournament played between 21 teams and both the teams came up with spirited performances in the playoffs winning some close matches to reach the finals.

CSK won the toss on a cloudy Saturday morning and elected to bat first in overcast conditions. Cougars opening bowlers gave a great start with Krishna (2 wickets in first 2 overs ) by taking out the prize wicket of Adi in the first over to a great diving catch from Subbu. During early wickets, Arun and Ashwin built a stable partnership but Arun’s runout in 8th over from a superb direct hit from Chaitanya changed the game as Arun was in good touch. CSK slipped from 43-3 in 8 overs to 43-6 in 10 overs. Ashwin played steadily and ran out of partners. Remaining CSK batsmen were not able to score big due to relentless bowling from Cougars and the total was 88 for 9 in 20 overs.

Saravana led the attack with a brilliant spell of 3-1-5-2 and was well supported by all the bowlers with Aveg and Krishna both picking two wickets each. Overall, it was a top-class bowling and fielding performance by Cougars. Chaitanya from Cougars had a great day in the field with three catches and one runout. For CSK, Ashwin Ravi (22*) and Arun (21) were the top scorers and supported by Ramesh (10) and Chirag (12).

With a tricky target of 89 to chase, Cougars lost their openers Chaitanya and Prashant within first 4 overs. The run out of Cougars captain Ashwin in 5th over put pressure on Cougars batsmen as required run rate slowly started climbing with CSK bowlers putting in a spirited performance. When Swaroop and Sree fell in 11th over to bring score at 38-5, the pressure started mounting in the Cougars camp. Subbu and Aveg built a great partnership from there. Initially they kept the score ticking with sensible batting and then opened with beautifully scoring shots all around the ground. The memorable unbeaten partnership was a match winning 53 runs in 40 balls.

Aveg finished the chase with two successive boundaries in 18th over to complete the chase and Cougars became deserving champions amid joyous celebrations. Subbu (25* of 25 with 4 fours), Aveg (23* of 15 with 3 fours) and Swaroop (15) were the main scorers. For CSK, Asad led the attach with 2 wickets and was supported by Ramsai and Karthik with one wicket each. The link to the score card is https://www.cricclubs.com/3T/fullScorecard.do?matchId=561&clubId=8675 and the link to YouTube is https://youtu.be/nAuPovQWlD8

The game was followed by a well-organized presentation ceremony hosted and facilitated by Jagadish Biradar of TCC where Ashwin Tandon, captain of Cougars received the championship trophy and Karthik Vadlamudi, captain of CSK was awarded the runners up trophy.  Aveg from Cougars was awarded the man of the match for his brilliant all round performance of 23* in 15 balls and spell of 4-0-18-2.

Tournament awards were also presented during the presentation ceremony. Sreekanth from Cougars won the award for the MVP of the tournament for his brilliant performances in the league games and a MVP performance in semis against SLCC. Divn. I tournament awards were presented. Parasu Nagendra from CSK was best batsman with 238 runs, Sarvanakumar from Cougars was best bowler with 13 wickets, Yesu from CFCC was the best allrounder with 234 runs and 11 wickets, Swaroop from Cougars was the best wicket keeper with 19 wickets, Aditya from CSK, Saifee from Champions CC II and Khaleed from CFCC got special awards for centuries and Ramesh Kumar from STYX got special award for Hat-trick. Divn. II tournament rewards were presented. Morshad from BTH was the best batsman with 294 runs, Faraz from Champions CC was the best bowler with 19 wickets, Gayan from All Starts CC was the best all rounder with 152 runs and 14 wickets, Syed from Champions CC was the best wicket keeper with 18 catches and 1 stumping.