Some swings and roundabouts at the Iceland today (Tuesday, August 23, 2016) in the Desmond Haynes U18 Cup as Cooksville Warriors squeezed to victory by 7 runs against Meadowvale Mavericks. Cooksville had a good start from openers Eshan Senarama (52) and Meigha Perera (34), wobbled a bit and ended 212 all out after 49.4 overs. Opener Gazenfar Syed (50) and Nikhil Sharma (64) batted solidly for several overs, after the loss of an early wicket, then began to gather runs with a combination of good shots and some good running between the wickets.
Useful contributions from Rohan Kundlass (39) and Harsh Kaul (17) seemed to be carrying Meadowvale to victory but some misjudged shots, a run out, a tense shot or non-shot or two mingled with a few wides to create a situation where Meadowvale needed 9 runs from 3 overs. But, the fall of wickets meant Cooksville needed only one wicket for victory, and victory came when Abaan Khan bowled Dipesh Bhatt for a duck in the 48th over.
Cooksville Warriors celebrated the dismissal as Meadowvale Mavericks had stumbled to 205 all out after 47.5 overs. The last five Meadowvale wickets tumbled with pace bowlers Ayush Verma and Abaan Khan bowling. Nashed Uddin would have been disappointed to pop the ball back for Ayush Verma to take a return catch. Shlok Patel began to walk after edging a ball from Ayush Verma to the wicketkeeper, then paused in the hope the umpire might think the ball had not been edged to the keeper. There was little doubt that the stumps had been hit when Abaan Khan bowled Dipesh Bhatt, but plenty of scope for players on both teams to consider the successes and areas where improvement may be needed.
Overall lots of promise for the future from a game played on a natural grass wicket, and some interesting cricket for the spectators. The outfield was a touch green and sometimes a bit slow, but some of the fielders were a bit slow in moving or reacting to the flight or direction of the ball.
At the end of the day, a tournament geared towards allowing junior players to develop on one of the better natural grass wickets and outfields in Canada produced a game that included a few fifties that may become 100s in future games, some good bowling and fielding plus a few less than inspiring moments with bat, ball or in the field. All part and parcel of the intention of having this Desmond Haynes U19 Cup. Playing the tournament as 50-over games rather than T20 matches certainly provides several players with opportunities not available in junior league and school competitions with few overs per side.
Cooksville Warriors complete the round-robin with one win and one defeat. Meadowvale Mavericks (Lost 1) now play Clarkson Cavaliers (Won 1, Lost 0) on Wednesday with both teams looking for a strong performance to secure a place in Friday’s final of this second Desmond Haynes U19 Cup. Play in this competition at the Iceland Cricket Oval is due to start each day at 10am.
*** Bowling figures not readily available when this initial report was filed. Report based on photos of manual scorecards. The manual scorecards were in pretty good shape, especially by local cricketing standards for “miscellaneous tournaments”. I will leave the topic of “building off-the-field support for cricket events” for another day or month, but there do seem to be some overdependencies on too few support folks.
A “transparent” observation that allows for different interpretations by different people. I will probably check for the electronic scorecards later and advise any changes. The “electronic” scorecard for Monday’s game had Clarkson Cavaliers scoring 184 against Cooksville Warriors rather than the 183 on the manual scorecard. (EN)