Towards the end of only its 2nd year American College Cricket organized 5 regional College Championships around the USA. 30 Universities particpated.Most of the teams were created or motivated by American College Cricket working with a highly motivated student leader. 14 teams played their first American College Cricket games during these regional Championships.

The strategic partnership with BIG League USA was a key factor in ensuring the successful implementation of this next step in USA cricket. 

The top performers in the 5 Championships ; Midwest, Northeast, Mid Atlantic, Southeast & West Coast, were : 

MVP – on & off the field – Romel Somavat, Ohio State University 

HAT TRICK – Bilal Shahid

 

OTHER NOTABLE BOWLING

  

Abhijeet Deshmuk (Purdue ) - 4 wickets in Finals vs OSU

Raghav Bharadvarj (UMBC) – 4 wickets against Penn State

Bilal Shahid (York College) – 4 wickets against NYU-Poly

Prasanna Venkatesh (Auburn)- 3 w for 4 runs

Shabir Adrali (George Mason) - 3 w for 5 

Alok Prabhu NYU-Ploy - 3 wickets for 9 runs  vs Rutgers

Vijay Pappu - UF 3 for 10  and 2 for 10 in Finals

Harsh Boddepalli USF - 3 wickets for 12 runs

Ahmed Faraz (Auburn) – 3 for 12

Yasneen Khan (York College) - 3 w for 16 runs

Melan Jancz UCF - 3 for 21

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WICKETKEEPER -  Ian Carlin (Wooster)

                                          Along with Ian, there were many superb ‘keepers – but in addition to his ‘keeping skills, Ian’s role in making the Homecoming Game happen distinguished him.

 

CENTURY - Faraz Arif  116*  Purdue

 

Other 50′s

 

Romel Somavat        97  OSU

Harshad Sowani        95   USC

Madhur Kaushik       76   Carnegie Mellon

Faraz Arif                    67   Purdue

Dushyant Sharma   65   USC

Raghav Bharadvarj  63*  UMBC

Ricky Nayyar         63   UF

Romel Somavat      55*  OSU

Srikar                    55*  Purdue

Mihir                     54*  Purdue

Vihesh Vikas         51*  UF

Hammad Rafique    51   George Mason

 

Romel Somavat (Ohio State U) & Tarun Sandhu (USC) were outstanding in assisting in organizing and hosting the Midwest & West Coast Championships respectively. Through the efforts of Romel Somavat OSU President E Gordon Gee came to the Midwest Finals. Gordon Gee is now on the Advisory Board of American College Cricket. 

 

Adrian Gordon (NYU-Poly) and USA star, played huge roles at the Northeast and MidAtlantic Championships, supporting American College in every way he could. 

North Carolina State bowling of Ankit Mehta ,Sethu Gopal, Hiren Patel, Suhas Ramesh,and Sami Syed was outstanding but reflected the tight bowling that was generally found in all the regional Championships. 

 

Rutgers was remarkable in that they really had no outstanding individual performance -but as a team won the Northeast Championship with tight bowling and great fielding.

 

Though Cal State Long Beach had no 50′s they had consistent scoring, with 3 scores in the 40′s.  

 

In the featured rivalry game of tapeball, USC vs UCLA, Abhimanyu of USC smashed 65, whilst Junayd Badaya of UCLA countered with a ferocious 79 to announce his arrival on the American College Cricket stage.

 

As a completely new team, the UF Gators performed remarkably well led by Captain Sandeep Pillarsetty and powered by the talented batting of Ricky Nayyar.

 

A number of teams drove long distances to play in the regional Championships, particularly the University of Iowa, Thunderbird School of Global Management,Penn State, Virginia Tech, North Carolina State, and was expression of their dedication to the American College Cricket movement,but Auburn’s 14 hour drive to the Southeast Championship was the ultimate.

 

Just after the Midwest Championship in Big 10 country the College of Wooster had one of the great moments in USA cricket history when they played a cricket game for Homecoming in the football stadium, and as icing on the cake, drew a college cricket record crowd of 967 spectators.

 

The Trophy presented to the Champions of each region, was specially designed in conjunction with Ravi Etwaroo of Cricketzone. Ravi Etwaroo played cricket with Errol Jodah ( brother of Lloyd ) years ago at the Under 19 level in the West Indies.

 

The notes here reflect mainly scores, a lot of other talent was on display such as Kislaya Kanan OSU, Shaan Mehta GWU, Sai Ramesh UCF,Mishal Patel USC, Az Cheema NYU-Poly, Rahul Potghun Auburn, and more was on display. 

 

The fielding was generally of a high standard, with diving and athletic saves, and many direct hits to the stumps.

 

TOP ALL ROUNDER – Romel Somavat  (Ohio State Buckeyes) 

TOP BATSMAN – Faraz Arif Iyoub  (Purdue Boilermakers)

TOP BOWLER  – Hiren Patel   (North Carolina State Wolfpack)

TOP FIELDER – Vibudh Mishka  (UF Gators)

Ian Carlin (Wooster) -Wicketkeeper/batsman

Faraz Arif in white pads

Hiren Patel NCSU with Shanae Strachan,Ms Teen Bahamas 2008

Vijay Pappu UF Gators

Harshad Sowani USC 95 runs

Bilal Shahid (York College) hattrick

Ricky Nayyar UF Gators

MVP Romel Somavat OSU, performances on & off the field

CLICK ON PHOTO TO SEE FULL SIZE. College media may use without further authorisation. College cricket players may use to promote their teams & for personal use.

The Cal State Long Beach cricket team is new to American College Cricket, and played their first ACC games in the West Coast Championship at Woodley Fields. Under Captain Kiran Patil they performed well and look to be a fierce competitor in the 2011 nationals,the American College Cricket Spring Break Championship set for March at the “American College Cricket” Stadiium in Ft Lauderdale.

The team included a Doctor, named Healthy ! Dr Healthy Desai is actually the doctor for several of the Cal State Long Beach sports teams. As he is also doing a Fellowship at the University, he was also eligible to play (as a student) on the cricket team.

Unlike other sports the unique educational demographics of cricket demand unique eligibilty rules, hence undergrads, grads, Phd & post-doctoral students can play on their college teams.

Amanda speaks with Kiran, Captain of Cal State Long Beach cricket

Amanda & Jay Varma, MVP

Along with the IPL, American College Cricket is the most important development in world cricket, in decades.

The LA Daily News showed up to cover the first American College Cricket West Coast Championship – and decorated the newspaper’s website with an article and 24 photos of cricket. A landmark for the game, and indicative of the strides American College Cricket is making, in bringing the game back into the American and Canadian mainstream.

Just as US colleges provide so much in resources for the training and development of track & field athletes from around the world, so too cricket can benefit from being highlighted on the USA college sports scene.

Young players on the West Coast, and all over the USA now have hope that their talent will have an avenue-what could be more exciting than playing for your college team, like football and basketball players?

And so it was that one of the biggest names in sports at any level in the USA (or the world), the University of Southern California took the field in cricket against Thunderbird School of Global Management, Cal State Long Beach and a team composed of students from UC Davis and some top under 19 players. UC Davis Aggies football Tight End Cameron Sentance was present.The venue was the venerable and scenic Woodley Fields (officially called the Leo Magnus Cricket Complex) and it was the first time American Universities on the West Coast were battling in cricket.

The autumn colors ringed the 2 (of 4) cricket fields as the beautiful California sun came out to see the student-athletes in action.But to avoid making the weekend truly heavenly, a record cold greeted the cricket players. Undeterred, the USC, Thunderbird, Cal State & Shiva Vashishat’s team of mainly UC Davis players put blade to ball, dove for catches and to stop runs, and bowled with competitive fire !

NO MORE DISAPPEARING ACTS

In deference to the World Cup USA Captain (at the Under 19 level) Shiva Vashishat’s team participated as “Special Guests”, as due to various factors he had not been able to start a registered club at UC Davis. With talent like Shiva Vashishat & fellow (Under 19) USA players like Saami Siddiqui and Salman Ahmed, Vashishat’s team won their games.

Shiva Vashishat showed his strong leadership skills and with enough competitive cricket, its easy to see him in the future possibly leading an All American College team or the USA. Vashishat recently spent a month in India, in cricket camp. It’s unfortunate that talent like Vashishat has dissappeared since the World Cup, and is only now being brought back to light with College cricket.

THE TROJANS’ MICHEAL HOLDING AND COLLEGE GAMEDAY & SOWANI’S 95

USC came into the Championship determined to come away with the Trophy, as well as exact revenge against Thunderbird, whilst the Cal State team was experienced playing together and was strong. Beginning with the game against their biggest rivals, UCLA, where they amassed 199 runs powered by Abhimanyu ‘s 65, USC looked good. Their opening batsman/opening fast bowler 6′ 6 Tarun Sandhu reminded one of Michael Holding, as he ran up to bowl.

On College Football Gameday, whilst the Trojans football team was not having a good day against rivals Notre Dame, at the Los Angeles Coliseum,the Trrojans’ cricket making a run at a Championship. Fortunately the cricket finished before the cold rain came down, but the football players had to play on.

Cal State Long Beach played well in their entry into American College Cricket to the sound of their school’s rallying cry “Beach !!”. Their top runscorers were Ronak Patel 43, Ismail 42 and Jay Varma 39. whilst Vivek Sharma had the best bowling performance of the Championship, taking 3 wickets for 16 runs. Doing a Fellowship at Cal State allowed a Doctor to play,his name is Dr Healthy Desai !

Thunderbird’s Nimish Jalan was the top allrounder, slamming 47 in one game and taking the most wickets. Captain Phalgun Balasubramaniam also bowled well. Thunderbird drove 8 hours through desert and mountains to play in the West Coast Championship, such is the spirit of American College Cricket players.

The innings of the Championship was 95 by USC’s Harshad Sowani, followed by USC’s Dushyant Sharma, which included 6 sixes and 4 fours. Sharma reached his 50 in only 17 balls.For Vashishat’s team Jodha Singh scored 71 and 64 not out, Krish Goel 54 and wicketkeeper Saami Siddiqui 32 *.

SUPPORT FOR WOODLEY

American College Cricket President Lloyd Jodah said “Woodley was chosen as the venue for the West Coast Championship to show support for these beautiful and historic fields. Like the Cricket Stadium in Florida, Woodley has been under threat – 2 of its pitches could have been recently lost to cricket. David Sentance mainly, and I, did our best to halt adverse action for now. We appreciate the Southern California Cricket Association for making it possible for us to play here, and we will continue to do our best to ensure Woodley Fields remain the gorgeous cricket facilty it is.”

Since Governor Arnold Schwarzegger was not there, presenting the specially designed Trophy was Amanda McCloud who will be representing the town of Topanga Canyon in the Ms California Pageant next year. Amanda presented the trophy to Tarun Tiyagi, Captain of the West Coast Champions, the University of Southern California, to yells of “Fight On !” by the Trojans players as the sun set over the mountains to the west as if to say, it had seen the future of USA cricket in the 5 regional Championships involving 29 Universities of American College Cricket, and now it could rest.
“Conquest”!

Amanda Mcleod (Ms Topanga Canyon) speaks with Thunderbird
 
Amanda with the T-Birds’ Captain Phalgun

Former T-Birds Captain Sudeep Misra

Amanda Mcleod (Ms Topanga Canyon) speaks with USC Trojans Captain Tarun Tiyagi

Amanda speaks with Harsh – Championship top scorer of 95 runs

50 runs in 17 balls !

Mishal Patel scores winning runs on last ball !

After USC’s only loss