Mississauga Ramblers play the touring Bermuda XI at the Iceland Cricket Oval today (Tuesday, September 6, 2016) in a 50 over game that is scheduled to start at 10am. This is the third of four matches in Bermuda’s tour to Canada that forms part of Bermuda’s preparations for the upcoming ICC World Cricket League Division 4 in Los Angeles, California and part of Canada’s High Performance Program for potential senior international players.
The City of Toronto, Mississauga’s neighbour, has issued a heat advisory for September 6, 2016, so it is likely to be pretty hot with some humidity at today’s Ramblers v Bermuda XI game after a weekend where it had not seemed as hot as it had been in several recent weeks in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
It almost seemed cool at Friday’s opening game between the Canada High Performance XI and Bermuda XI at Maple Leaf Cricket Club in King City, Ontario. But it was a bit warmer yesterday, Labour Day Monday (September 5, 2016), when three of the Toronto and District Cricket Association’s 2016 Junior Cricket Finals were played at Sunnybrook Park, Toronto.
Australasia Cricket Academy Under-15A began the TDCA Junior Finals on Sunday (September 4, 2016) with a 45 run win against Qasra Cricket Academy, but Labour Day Monday began with Qasra CA Under-19s beating Australasia CA Under-19s by 10 runs. The Under-19 final is played early to allow some of the players the chance of playing in TDCA junior games later in the day. Given the 11.30am start in senior games as the summer moves towards fall in the GTA, at least one Canadian U19 international faced a challenge in reaching Maple Leaf CC in time for a senior game that had probably already started by the time the U19 final and some brief celebrations were over.
Quasra Cricket Academy U19
Toronto & District CA Under-17 Champions: Centurions (ActionZone) U17
Qasra CA U19 scored 138/6 from 20 overs against Australasia CA U19. Captain and Canadian U19 international Harsh Thaker scored 50, Nick Manohar 34 and Aayush Patel 23. Four of Qasra’s wickets fell to run outs. Aayush Patel later made a well judged boundary catch at long-on that ended Ravi Sandhu’s knock on 23. This important catch, when off-spinner Harsh Thaker was bowling, tipped the scales in Qasra’s favour when Sandhu was going well. Thaker had earlier accounted for Amrinder Atwal, who scored 34, and caught Kevin Sandhu for 33. The game ended when Harsh Thaker caught and bowled Piyush Prabhakar for a duck that left Australasia 128 all out after 19.3 overs. So three balls unused by the Australasian batters and a 10 run win for Qasra CA U19.
GTA Challengers Under-13s then won the TDCA Under-13 championship final with a 7 wicket win in a high scoring game against Australasia U13b. Shorter boundaries are used for Under-13 games, but some of the leading Under-13 players manage to perform well with bat and ball in higher age groups. Junior tournaments played during weekdays provide more opportunities for leading juniors in U13 thru U19 to gain more playing experience that can provide a leading edge in their performance levels.
TA Challengers Under-13 team, the 2016 TDCA U13 Champions
Australasia U13b scored 151/5 from 20 overs. Rishib Jain lead Australasia’s batting with 36 runs and Ramanvir Dhaliwal made 25. GTA Challengers’ Sahan Gunasekera took 4 wickets for 25 from his 4 overs. Opening bats Stefan Manikvasagar and Dilraj Deol gave Challengers a good start. Stefan was eventually out for 32 but Dilraj Deol batted through the innings to score 52* of Challengers championship winning 152/3. A total made from about 19 overs.
The 2016 TDCA Junior Finals concluded with Oakville Cricket Academy being held to 109/6 from 20 overs by the Centurions (ActionZone) Under-19s in a game where the bowlers and fielders generally performed well. The fielders were often set to put pressure on the batsmen and responded with some alert fielding in support of tidy bowling. Ultimately in an era of heavier cricket bats that a number of junior players are able to wield with power and timing there becomes little room for error by the bowlers. In the modern T20 game some good looking balls are powered unmercifully over the boundary ropes.
There were no boundary ropes, nor a marked boundary line on the Sunnybrook Park north ground on Labour Day Monday. The 30 yard fielding circle is marked and boundary flags were set as the boundary. A dramatic blast for six sailed over the wide long-on boundary, close to deep mid-wicket territory, in the game’s last over and was followed by a lofted drive that brought the game winning single for Centurions (Action Zone) U19s. It was tough on the Oakville CA players who, in traditional cricket thinking terms, went into the last over in a seemingly good position, but one well timed drive turned the tide late in that closing over.
Pressure of time exists as I need to prepare for this morning’s Mississauga Ramblers v Bermuda XI game and need to obtain some supplies from a store that opens early, but far from a direct path to the Iceland Cricket Oval. I suspect I will discover who won the last two rounds of TDCA Super 6 Division T20 regular season games when at today’s Ramblers game. I may get the chance to check if there was one ball to spare when the winning run was scored in Oakville CA 109/6 (20 overs), Centurions (ActionZone) U19s winning 110 for however many wickets from 19 overs and most, if not all, the 20th over.
The TDCA media centre does not churn out detail statistics from these finals within minutes of the game ending and the player of the game awards being announced. League records indicate the winning team is still known as Centurions, but the ActionZone gear translates into an ActionZone Cricket Academy, or ACA. A different ACA to the Australasia Cricket Academy.
My plan A for this morning, to take a team photo of the Bermuda squad and portrait photos to fill in some gaps on a couple of major cricket scoring databases, may need to change. Balance and balancing acts. A bit like batting, bowling and fielding in the closing over of an important game. Quite a crowd near Kipling subway station last night. There had been an accident. At least one fire truck and an ambulance. You just hope that all are well.
Eddie Norfolk