Rutgers is the 2018 National Champion « American College Cricket

Rutgers is the 2018 National Champion

Rutgers, 2018 National Champion

2nd Semi – RYERSON vs SOUTH ALABAMA. presented by SLING on SONY HD.

South Alabama won the toss and decided to bowl as brilliant sunshine lit up CBRP Cricket Stadium and SONY’s cameras eagerly awaited action. Ryerson was the defending champion but South Alabama had not been this far before as the old Conway Twitty song said. Hassan Khan had performed well for Ryerson in the past, a hard hitting batsman but this time he went for a duck, lbw to Sujal Patel on his 2nd ball.

Jean Paul Rocke came to the wicket and kept getting beaten by the bowling, despite the form he had shown the previous day smashing 97 vs NJIT but he held on for 36 eventually. Bilal Khan however was ablaze at the other end and his 31 included 2 sixes and 2 fours in 17 balls before being out at 41 at 6.3 overs. Talha Kirmani played some glorious shots that delighted the commentators and spectators whilst striking 6 fours in his 47* as he took Ryerson to 144 for 8 in their 20 overs. Varun Bellide took 3 for 25, Neel Patel 2 for 25.

Neel continued his MVP performance with 56 off 44 balls, with 5 fours and 3 sixes as he took the Jaguars to 119, close to the target before being out, but by then with 20 balls to get 26 runs South Alabama was ‘Sailing’ as Rod Stewart sings. Kinal Patel 368 and Uzair Javed 108 took it home in 17.1 overs. The consistent Sujal Patel had an amazing innings of 38 in 21 balls with 5 sixes as South Alabama got to their first Finals in a National or Regional championship in their 6 years ! https://cricclubs.com/americancollegecricket/viewScorecard.do?matchId=524&clubId=3456

The Finals : SOUTH ALABAMA vs RUTGERS. Presented by SLING on SONY HD.

The 10th American College Cricket Finals for the Shiv Chanderpaul Trophy was going to be between Rutgers which had reached the Finals in 2016, only to lose to USF, and South Alabama. Rutgers won the toss and elected to bowl. After a good start of 33 in 5 overs South Alabama lost 3 wickets for 5 runs. A brief recovery partnership of 32 between Kinal Patel 17 & Amjad Muhammad 15 took them to 70 but Hassaan Wajeeh’s spin and Junaid Chaudhry proved too much for South Alabama’s batsmen and they crumbled to 82 all out. Wajeeh got 4 for 7, whilst Chaudhry took 4 for 25 & Anilkumar 2 for 12.

Umer Farooq struck a 4 then was bowled but Haider Ali 34 and Chaudhry 32 took Rutgers close and they won by 7 wickets in 13.3 overs !

https://cricclubs.com/americancollegecricket/viewScorecard.do?matchId=525&clubId=3456

It was a hard earned victory for Rutgers – they’ve always had stong teams going back to 2010, and it had borne fruit with a Finals berth in 2016 , only to lose to the consistent USF Bulls. Indeed Rutgers was supposed to be one of the orginal teams in March 2009 but the students then said they didn’t have permission to travel as Rutgers so they couldn’t play. They did make it to 2010 Nationals then won the 2010 North East regional, but then Ryerson appeared in the North East in 2011 and kept winning that Regional.

However the team persevered despite difficulties which finally caught up keeping them out of the 2017 North East Championship. Participation in a Regional is usually a criteria to be eligible for Nationals but the club was allowed an exception due to their particular situation and commitment over the years, and made excellent use of it ! To get to the Finals they defeated UF Gators, Virginia Tech, 2015 Champion UT Dallas & 2016 Champion USF. Their one loss came when they batted first vs MIT.

U of South Alabama – Finalist

South Alabama was a movie-like story, led by Neel Patel & MVP Amjad Muhammad, having made Nationals playoffs only once before, when Syed Falah
was on the team. Falah notably scored 99 and 101 in a Championship but defeating Mid Atlantic Champion Drexel, Yale, Harvard, Texas A & M then 2017 Champion Ryerson to get to the Finals. They had 2 scores over 200.

The Semis & Finals were broadcast on SONY HD as they were last year in USA & Canada, in agreement with American College Cricket. SONY is a major player in world cricket media, having the Media Rights for 7 Test playing countries ; England, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies & Zimbabwe. At the time of writing SONY is bidding for BCCI media rights. SLING was Presenting Sponsor again.

The Shiv Chanderpaul Trophy was presented by the CPL’s Jamaica Tallawahs CEO Jeff Miller. Championship MVP went to South Alabama’s Amjad Muhammad, Best Bowler was Hassaan Wajeeh (Rutgers) & Best Batsman was Neel Patel (South Alabama. The American College Cricket Season MVP Award of a stint in the Tallawahs training camp was awarded to Arjun Verma (Harvard). David Sentence & Lloyd Jodah commentated along with Hugh Doyle (GWU) who also was the on field Interviewer. Scoring and on screen graphics were by Cricclubs. Umpires & Tournament Manager assisting Lloyd was Max Diah. Chief Umpire was ECB’s Billy Taylor.