UT Arlington repeat as South West Champion !

UTA’s Likith Gowda receiving the South West Trophy from Lloyd Jodah, with David Sentance

The Final for the American College Cricket South West Championship presented by SLING took place at Moosa Stadium, Houston Texas. It was televised on SONY all over USA and Canada. UT Dallas had won a very close exciting game vs U of Houston Clealake, whilst UT Arlington showed their strength by bowling Houston Cougars out for a low total to seal their Final’s place.

UT Dallas won the toss, and decided to bat, which looked like a good decision when Ashwin Kannan and Captain Praveen Kumar put on 48 runs in 6.3 overs before Kumar went for 27. Kannan continued to blast the bowling for 5 sixes and 5 fours in his 73* as wickets fell at the other end until Jagpreet Singh, 21* helped him put on 66 runs but with 1 over left they only had 126.However to UTA’s dismay 23 runs came off the last over to give UTD a very good score of 149 ! Rahul Rao (UTA) took 3 for 33.

Rahul Rao, 44, Krishanu Srinath, 42* & Likith Gowda, 20 scored for UTA but with 2 overs left it was very close with 17 runs needed to win ! Then Krishanu & Radhakrishna took matters into their hands and smashed the required 17 in 1 over including 2 fours & a Six !

UT Arlington repeated as South West Championship but a rebuilding UT Dallas had put up a great fight ! Both teams look strong for the National Championship in Florida March 15 to 19, with UTD hoping their top batsman Pratik Dengle is revovered from knee surgery.

Author & cricket historian David Sentence and Lloyd Jodah commentated the game which was played at Smart Choice’s Moosa Stadium – the work of Sakhi Muhammad. The Curator was Sam Plummer.
FULL SCORECARD & STATS

https://www.crichq.com/#matches/443334/1st_innings

Every week at 2 pm Eastern American College Cricket matches can be seen on SONY throughout the USA & Canada until March 26, 2017.