TCC Taped Ball Professional Tournament Spring 2016, GenX Winners, Houston Titans Runners up

HOUSTON: GenX CC won the TCC Taped Ball Professional League Spring 2016 tournament defeating Houston Titans by four wickets in a nail biting thriller game. It was a well-deserved win for GenX CC who have been playing TCC tournament from past 2.5 years and made it to the play offs for the first time and made it all the way. Houston Titans played TCC tournament for the first time and had a great tournament making it to the finals on debut. The Professional League tournament was a highly competitive one featuring 9 participating teams from Divn 2.

On a beautiful Saturday morning, GenX won the toss and opted to field first considering the wet conditions of pitch and outfield. GenX bowlers used the wet conditions well and took 6 wickets in first 10 overs for a score of 55. As the pitch and the field dried out gradually, Houston Titans came back with sensible batting by rotating the strike and punishing loose balls to the boundaries. After early loss of wickets, Venu (19) and Vaibhav (27 not out) fought well to give a decent score to defend. Pradeep from GenX bowled an excellent spell picking up 4 wickets. Sujith bowled a tight line in the death overs to pick up 1 wicket. At the end of 20 overs, Houston Titans were all out scoring 117 runs. For Houston Titans, Venu and Vaibhav were well supported by Akshay (14), Sai (13) and Vikas (11). For GenX, Pradeep was well supported by Sujith, Naveen, Ramsai and Subbu who took 1 wicket each.

At the end of the first innings, GenX had an upper hand as 118 seemed to achievable on a dried up pitch and outfield. Houston Titans had different ideas, bowled a tight line and backed it up good fielding and made GenX to fight for each run. At the end of 10 overs, GenX were 45 runs for the loss of 1 wicket with Vasu out for 9 runs. Rajesh who joined Sujith avoided any further loss of wickets. Required run rate was over 7 in 10 overs and GenX had wickets in hand making it an interesting last 10 overs. Rajesh tried to accelerate after the break and Rajesh got out for 12 runs. Naveen played a quick-fire cameo of 20 runs with 2 huge sixers to give the requirement momentum to GenX. At the end of 15th over and loss of two more wickets, 33 runs were required from 5 overs. It came down to 8 runs from the final over. When 4 runs were required from 3 balls, Pavan hit the no-ball to the boundary giving GenX the first trophy. Sujith, who stayed not out scored a match winning 55 runs. For Houston Titans, Kaushal bowled great with 4 wickets and also took two good catches in deep. He was supported by Vaibhav and Venu The game had high quality umpiring from Rattlers and Spartans teams.

The game was followed by a well-organized prize distribution ceremony arranged by TCC. TCC Senior member Roshan Ngangom graced the occasion as chief guest. He was felicitated by TCC with a plaque for his contribution and support to cricket in Houston. Jagadish Biradar, the organizer of the tournament coordinated the presentation ceremony.

Rajesh Kopparthi, the captain of GenX cricket club was presented with the championship trophy and Venu Milkuri, the captain of Houston Titans was presented with the runners up trophy. Man of the match for the finals was Pradeep Voona from GenX for his crucial 4 wickets.
Sujith Pasupuleti from GenX won the Best Batsman trophy with 225 runs and Best Allrounder trophy with 225 runs and 8 wickets. Nitesh Kosuri from Rangers team won the Best Bowler trophy with 15 wickets. Sujith from GenX and Vaibhav from Houston Titans were presented with Man of the Match for semifinals.