Top Clubs of the Year 2012 !
- BU Cricket, 2012 Nationals
It’s difficult to pick a Club of the Year – all of our Clubs that make it to the Nationals, especially those from outside of Florida, do a lot of work to get there. But we can’t pat ourselves on the back for accomplishing the minimum – we have to do a lot more.
Use of Social media is extremely important for organisations, causes, businesses and since late 2008 we have been urging our members to learn to use Facebook to promote our cause. Some of you are doing a great job ! Here are the Top Clubs on Facebook (mostly powered by the students named) :
University at Buffalo – Ashaab Alam, Parth Parikh
Texas Tech – Amit & Vishnu Chaudhary, Arjun Tuli
York College – Mohammad Suleman
Embry Riddle – Harsh Gothwal, Jerin Chacko
Florida International – Sagar & Santhosh Reddy
College of Wooster – Naman Jain
TOP CLUBS (Overall) 2012
Boston University :
One of the 5 pioneering clubs that played in the first American College Cricket Spring Break Championship, BU has played in every national Championship and regionals, getting to the Semis this year & playing on TV Asia. Original players like Shilpin Makwana, & Ankush Chandra remain active in the club with new strong leadership like Hayat Khan.
This year the club got an article, & produced a superb video, featured in BU media. But the masterpiece was the moving headline Banner, featuring the BU cricketers in action, on the Homepage of Boston University – it not only gave American College Cricket tremendous visibility among non-cricketers but was an exciting banner by itself !
Club President Hayat Khan, with American College Cricket assistance, is working on getting cricket taught as a credit course – a tremendous development if approved !
As we originally intended in 2009, BU helped the development in 2012, of new clubs at Harvard and Northeastern, including playing of practice matches.
Penn State University :
The club has the distinction of having a qualified Coach, on the Penn State staff, who travels with the team. This marks a huge step for American College Cricket which we hope to be emulated in other colleges. The club has also been given good access to practice facilities similar to other club sports at Penn State. Coach David Chakravorty (from Australia) also provided excellent ball by ball TV commentary for the Finals in March.
Once again, as they did in 2011, Penn State traveled to, and played in 2 regionals: this time the Mid West & Mid Atlantic, such is their enthusiasm for American College Cricket. A young team, they just missed making the Semis in the Mid Atlantic.
In April, Penn State University gave the club won the Most Improved Club Award to the Cricket Club.and the leadership of Haris Mohiuddin.
Texas A & M University
The Aggies started the year by largely organizing the first South West regional in Jan, on their own new cricket field – and hosted 4 other college teams: West Texas A & M, Texas Tech, UH Cougars and UH Clearlake with American College Cricket President Lloyd Jodah.
Texas A & M won the South West Championship in convincing fashion , and continued their unbeaten streak in American College Cricket, earning them a # 1 National ranking !
At the Nationals they finally were overcome by eventual Champions York College in the final four, after going unbeaten for 11 matches. But the manner in which they conducted themselves won them the “Spirit of Cricket” Award.
In the Fall they had their annual internal tournament and ended the year by marshalling hundreds of votes on Facebook for their left handed strokeplayer Anurag Verma as a College Player of the Year !
Texas Tech University
Throughout the year, the club has been vibrant, and engaged in activites that elevate its profile like : Fed Day (where it competed against other Tech clubs in Flag Tag, Dodge Ball, Tug o War etc & was asked, “Where did you get Coca Cola as a sponsor ?”) and Sports Club Publicity Day. The club also featured in a photo shoot.
Many members of Texas Tech Raiders Cricket Club, particularly Amit & Vishu Chaudhary, Arjun Tuli and alum Baiju Shah, regularly share AmericanCollegeCricket.com stories on their personal Facebook profiles, doing their part in helping to build our fanbase.
Texas Tech took 2 trips to the South West regional in College Station, and to the Nationals in Ft Lauderdale and have been practicing regularly for the upcoming American College Cricket Spring Break Championship in March. Though far from other Texan teams the club is eager to host a regional.
With its own cricket field Texas Tech is a shining example in our goal to develop infrastructure. However construction may happen on the site,so the Cricket Club has begun to look at what is neccessary to ensure another, hopefully even better field, is acquired.
More than any other club, the graduates of the Raider Cricket Club who have moved to different places, have remained supportive in financial & other ways. We hope this example will be emulated by alumni of all our clubs.
University of South Florida ;
Another of our pioneering 5 clubs from 2009 USF has been the most consistent club on the field and this year they were Finalists in the Nationals again, & the South East regionals. Their Facebook cover highlights American College Cricket, TV Asia & Coca Cola.
USF has been using the CRICHQ app for all their matches (thanks to Satish Hanumanthu) and this has ensured the performances of their top players like 2012 College Player of the Year Abdullah Sheikh, 2012 Nationals MVP Sai Ramesh & centurion Krunal Bhange,got the recognition they deserved, & are recorded for posterity.
For the 2nd year USF held a large tape ball tournament, where they applied lessons learnt from American College Cricket for Facebook promotion, and webstreaming for their draft they wore formal wear).
However, bafflingly they have not received any coverage by their USF media (to our knowledge) in the past 4 years – the only one of our major clubs to not get this recognition. We hope this is changed soon.
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The Top Clubs of the Year were chosen from teams that played in the Nationals. A point was awarded to each winner of a Regional, or a Quarter Finalist of the Nationals. The National Champions earned 2 points.
All other points were based on getting media coverage, Facebook & other Social Media promoting, accomplishments off the field such as those mentioned that further the American College Cricket movement, your Club’s fan base, and support in your college; promotion of TV Asia’s televising of our matches.
The determinations were based on reports submitted by your Clubs to American College Cricket,observations on Facebook & other Social Media including “shares” of AmericanCollegeCricket.com articles, support shown by your college in the form of facilities, finance, media etc
