Johnson bowls Pathirana

Brampton Masters Tranzac beat Centurions by four wickets on Sunday to become the 2014 Toronto and District Cricket Association (TDCA) Elite Divison Champions. The start of the game was delayed to allow heavy morning dew to be mopped up by the heat of the sun.

Centurions scored 148 all out from 45.4 overs, which included a fifth wicket stand of 80 between Ryan Wiggins (62) and Jade Padmore (37). Centurions innings did not begin well with Delorn Johnson taking three wickets, and holding a catch at long-leg off Jeremy Gordon’s bowling. Johnson’s wickets included Centurions two top scorers from the semi-finals (Treving Bastiampillai and Dhanuka Pathirana Spinner Hiral Patel took 4/25 from 8.4 overs.

Hiral Patel (19) and Ruvindu Gunasekera (23) scored 31 for Masters first wicket; Centurions, by contrast, had lost four wickets for 30. Masters innings then had a couple of glitches, slipping to 48/3 after 8 overs. Wicketkeeper Darwin Christian (39) and Verun Shadev (40*) added 64 for the fourth wicket. Damodar Daesrath and Rizwan Cheema did not last long, but Jevon Searles (12*) helped Shadev steer Masters to 150/6 and the Elite Championship after 37.1 overs.

Perhaps Masters could have been 128/7 if a close catching chance had been held just before Cheema was caught at the wicket, but reality shows 128/6.

The lack of recent high-level match practice may have contributed to some of the dismissals on both sides, and to some of the phases where the bowlers had the upper hand. There were some overs where a bowler lost control of line, length or both for a few balls that aided the run scoring.

A few spectators turned up who expected an impossible perfection – each batsman was supposed to beautifully or savagely send each ball to the boundary; each bowler was supposed to take a wicket or bowl a dot ball. There was a distinctly one-eyed approach to such thinking as only “our” batsmen were to perform wonders with the bat; the other team’s bowlers could (and should!) bowl as imperfectly as possible. The expectation changed when “we” were bowling, whoever “we” are.

It seemed strange that a couple of sequences of dot balls went without applause from one little group of such philosophers late in the game. One stray shepherd ventured out during a break to indicate “his” team were performing like a bunch of idiots, but did not put it as politely as that.

Some in Canadian cricketing leadership seem keen on emphasising how games are organized and played to ICC regulations and standards. Perhaps the stray shepherd should have been invited to depart for pastures new by whoever was supposed to be responsible for crowd control under whatever spectator conduct standards were – supposedly – in place.

So those are the basics of the game from what was, personally, a long day, or rather a sequence of three or more busy days.

Thanks were given to the club sponsors, supporters and players during Masters post-game celebrations where there were many happy faces. It might be useful in future years to allow some advertising banners or board for about the sponsors of each participating team to be displayed at each end of the ground. It could provide a bit of more public recognition – better not call it “payback” – if pictures or video were taken and published or posted somewhere, even if only on league and club websites and facebook pages.

Advertising boards could provide more solid indications of the boundary than the selection of markers that were in place on the north-east pitch. The south-east pitch, used in both Elite Division semi-finals had a boundary rope that provided a more distinct boundary.

Perhaps a sponsor or series of sponsors could be found for a boundary rope around the main grounds used in higher division playoffs or domestic and international tournaments at Maple Leaf CC in the future. This might provide some funding to pay for someone to put the boundaries in place each day, or for a series of cameras so the TV umpire might be able to perform some reviews in future years.

So congratulations to Brampton Masters Tranzac for winning the Elite Division playoff championships and to Centurions for heading one conference and reaching the Elite Divsion playoff final.

Eddie Norfolk