UMBC vs NJIT & Penn State vs York College on TV Asia !
The 5 American College Cricket games broadcast so far in USA & Canada have been historic and groundbreaking – with 1 more to come for this Fall season – this Saturday at 7pm.
, York College vs NJIT.
No one else has so far even come close to televising domestic cricket in the USA and Canada.
With each broadcast the games on TV Asia look better and better – the camera people, though new to cricket, capture the action better. The added slow motion replays now bring the matches closer to the top level. The graphics and scores are more detailed with each game.
The commentary has been good, with Andre Kirton, Aoun Jaffarey (Indian U), Risabh Natarajan (NYU-Poly) and Hammad Rana (Indian U) joining myself, Lloyd Jodah for the York College vs Penn State match.
UMBC vs NJIT : This game went down to the very last ball !
For NJIT Ravi and Captain Prem Bhagavati got the team off to a great start, putting on 54 in 6 overs. Then Taha alli got the breakthrough for UMBC, taking the wickets of both openers in his first over.
A partnership of 34 steadied the NJIT Highlanders somewhat, but NJIT never really capitalised on their great start. Three wickets fell at 101 and NJIT were all out for 107.
Taha Ali took 3 wickets for 18 runs in 4 overs, Raghav Bharadwaj 2 wickets for 14 in 3, whilst Sumeet Chordiya chipped in with 1 wicket for 24 in his 4 overs. There were 3 run outs.
UMBC struggled batting, and at the end of the powerplay (after 5 overs) UMBC was 23 for 3 compared to NJIT’s 48 for 0 at the same point.
Raghav Bharadwaj took it to the NJIT bowlers though, and struck 32 before he was 4th out with UMBC on 35 !
Somehow UMBC got closer and closer to the NJIT total, and going into the final over 11 runs were needed ! A four meant 7 runs in 5 balls, and finally 2 runs to win on the last ball, or 1 to tie !
The New Jersey boys got the wicket on the final ball to snatch victory from the boys from Maryland !
PENN STATE vs YORK COLLEGE :
The Penn State Nitany Lions batted first against the York College Cardinals and struggled. Varun Kullkarni however played a superb innings of 32, which included 2 magnificent cuts off Hugo D’Oliveira for sixes, as well as more exquisite strokes before getting run out.
Penn State made 84. Karan Ganesh bowled a great spell of 3 overs for 3 runs, taking 3 wickets. Hugo D’Oliveira, Suleman Mohammed & Bilal Shahid each chipped in with a wicket each, whilst opening bowler Yasneen Khan bowled a good spell, and took 2 very good catches in the deep.
Jasim Ahmed had 2 run outs.
It was going to be tough for Penn State to defend 84 as a total, Rishab Bahel gave it his all, striking 4 times, including taking 3 wickets in his 2nd over. Rishabh finished with 4 overs, 15 runs and 4 wickets.
However in the 2nd over of the match Raghav Agarwal gave the game away, bowling 6 ful ltosses to Akeem Dodson who dispatched then all o the boundary for 4s and sixes ! 40 runs were scored off the over, which included a noball and wide !
Dodson was out for 32, made in 8 balls (3 sixes & 3 fours) ! Karan Ganesh, 22* in 9 balls ( 2 fours & 1 six) and Hugo D’Oliveira 14* (1 four & 1 six) wrapped up the victory for York College !
Next year TV Asia will televise at least 18 American College Cricket matches in their entirety, plus highlights from others, and reports on American College Cricket.
6 games will be televised from the American College Cricket Spring Break Championship, March 13 to 18.
