2021 All Stars Loved being back on the Field !
The 2021 American College Cricket All Star Weekend was held at Moosa Stadium in Houston, Texas and 24 of our players gathered to celebrate being back on the field. – and back at Moosa Stadium where we’ve played All Stars Weekends and South West Championships since 2014.
In 2016 we broadcast on SONY with SLING as a sponsor from there… pioneer Sakhi Muhammad is in our Hall of Fame for being the 1st private investor in a world class cricket facility in USA & his improvements continue… we’ve broadcast over 125 games on SONY, ESPN, TV Asia, Cricclubs & Moosa has the best Commentary booth, plus first class locker rooms etc Moosa Stadium is not far off from the ICC Certification for International cricket that currently only Broward Stadium enjoys.
The 24 players were divided into 2 teams, names Sentance XI & Jodah XI – with Abdul Khuram (GWU) as Captain of Sentance XI, with Aditya Sen (UF Gators) as Captain of the Jodah XI.
Game 1 :Pacer Dhanya Dave (Guelph) from Canada wrecked Sentance XI’s batting taking a remarkable 4 wickets in 4 overs for only 4 runs. He had 1 maiden. This followed fellow Canadian & American College Cricket’s Saad Zafar (Ryerson)’s world record 4 overs, 4 maidens & 2 wickets !
The Jodah XI won easily by 8 wickets in the beautiful weather
GAME 2: Despite USA’s most powerful batsman Nil Patel (NJIT) smashing 95 in 48 balls, with 8 sixes & 6 fours Sentance XI was able to keep Jodah XI to 155 for 6. Ryan Scott (UMD) blasted his team to a blistering start before he was out at 32 in 3 overs !
At 92 for 2 Sentance XI was on their way to a win with Rahul Gurajala ( West Virginia) 33 and 15 yr old High School guest player Adithya Venkatesh 22 rotating the strike well and playing confidently until Gurajala pulled a calf muscle. Venkatesh lost his concentration & wicket immediately after the injury break and Sentance never recovered, scoring just 116 for 6 wickets when play ended due to bad light with just 17 balls left. Jodah XI was awarded the win.
GAME 3: Sentance XI struggled again but 15 year old Adithya Venkatesh palyed a magnificent innings of 61* with shots along the ground on both sides of the wicket, and excellent strike rotation in partnerships of 34 with Husnain Bashir 13, and 62 unbroken with Hardik Mahtre (Syracuse) 21* . Bhaskar Trivedi (UTA) flighting the ball took 2 for 17. Jodah XI had no trouble making the total to win by 6 wickets, with Manish Thakkar (UTA) scoring 39 and Kinal PAtel (South Alabama) 26.
UTA vs American College Cricket USA Team UTA batted first and struggled to 93 for 7 in their reduced 18 overs. Manish Thakkar topscored with 28 before being run out, Vijay Ganesh made 23. Saurabh Joshi (Pitt) took 2 for 17. With rain threatening Captain Aditya Sen chose to give players a chance to bat instead of bearing a D/L total in mind, as Sai Ramesh did back in 2016 when faced with a similar situation. The result was Jodah XI was 23 for 2, Bashir 13* when rain ended play and a D/L win was awarded to UTA.
For the Presentation of Trophies and Medals Husnain Bashir changed into his US Marines Dress uniform and did the Presentations – a first in cricket in the US and definitely an honor for American College Cricket. Despite the rain the players all expressed their enjoyment of the Weekend, and the facilites and asked for another All star Weekend soon.
The videos of the Live streams of all 4 matches can be found on the American College Cricket Facebook page, as well as Photos taken by Zack Haley. Highlights clips are also being posted. Scorecards can be seen on the Cricclubs link on AmericanCollegeCricket.com
