TCC Taped Ball Tournament Fall 2015

HOUSTON: Cougars Cricket Club won the TCC Taped Ball Fall 2015 tournament defeating Rockers Cricket Club (RCC) by 38 runs. It was a well-deserved win for Cougars who are now winners of three of the last seven tournaments. They came back strongly with 8 wins in the last 9 matches after a quiet start in the tournament. RCC had a great tournament reaching finals for the first time since winning the trophy in 2010. The tournament was a highly competitive one featuring 22 participating teams and stretched to nearly 6 months with knockouts rescheduled 3-4 times due to regular rains.

On a beautiful Saturday morning with overcast conditions, Cougars won the toss and opted to bat first. Conditions favored the bowlers but Cougars top order batted sensibly scoring consistently at over 5 runs per over and keeping wickets in hand. RCC got the first breakthrough with key wicket of Ashwin who scored 20 runs at a quick pace. The next batsmen Swaroop kept the momentum going scoring a well-made run a ball 25 as RCC bowlers led by Manju bowled tight lines ensuring Cougars did not take the game away and had to work hard for their runs. Cougars scored 53-1 in first 10 overs and with help of important contributions from Shailesh (23), Chaitanya (20) and a six ball 12 from Rajesh made 123 – 7 in 20 overs. Praveen was the pick of the bowlers with three wickets along with Manju who continued his good form with spell of 4-0-13-2. Cougars had the momentum at the break as they scored 14 runs of the 20th over against a very strong bowling lineup, RCC got off to a poor start losing both the openers within first 4 overs with Abhishek and Saravana each taking one wicket restricting them to 11-2 in 4 overs which soon became 19-3 in 6 overs when Subbu took a one handed caught and bowled. RCC scored 42-3 at the end of 10 overs. In the second half, Cougars bowlers kept taking regular wickets to ensure RCC didn’t get any chance to fight back with Rajesh and Rahil controlling the overs with 3 and 2 wickets respectively. Sreejayan fought a lone battle scoring 42 runs as RCC reached 90-9 in 18 overs when heavy rain stopped the match and Cougars were declared the winners to start wild celebrations amongst the team. The game had high quality umpiring from Jagadish from TCC and Myron.

The game was followed by a well-organized prize distribution ceremony arranged by TCC with Pramod Kulkarni from Indo American News gracing the occasion as chief guest. He was felicitated by TCC President Nanda Kumar with a plaque from TCC for his contribution and support to cricket in Houston. Jagadish Biradar, 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 Keyur Shah, the captain of RCC was presented with the runners up trophy. The players of the winners and runners up received individual trophies. Man of the match for the finals was Rajesh Pant from Cougars for his all-round performance taking 3 wickets, 2 catches and scoring a crucial 12 runs of 6 balls in 20th over.

Aditya from Rattlers won the Best Batsman trophy with 301 runs as well as best all-rounder trophy for 301 runs and 14 wickets. Abhishek Mundada from Cougars won the Best Bowler trophy with 22 wickets. Trophies were also given to the man of the match for Semi Finals. Abhishek from Cougars and Keyur from RCC were the recipients of the man of the match for Semi Finals. Kiran from ECC and Vinay Padala from MBCC were given special awards for taking hattrick during the league games.