By Peter Della Penna

The USACA Eastern Conference Tournament in Washington, D.C., which took place from July 17-19, threw up a wild mix of on field performances and off the field obstacles, combining the strange with the sublime over the course of the weekend.

Speaking on the occasion, Gladstone Dainty, the President of USACA, called the weekend a great success.  “We had some good performances,” said Dainty. “We achieved our objectives and we got an opportunity to see a lot of good cricketers perform.”

Gladstone Dainty interview from Peter Della Penna on Vimeo.

New York Region was bowled out for 119 and lost by 5 wickets in their first match on Saturday, but came back to win their final two games by 9 wickets each to earn the tournament title. Steve Massiah, the captain of the New York Region and the US National Team, finished as the leading run scorer in the tournament with 151 runs in three innings while only getting out once.

“I must thank my teammates for the wonderful support over the last three days because we basically came from third place to number one and that’s a great accomplishment,” said Massiah after New York defeated the Atlantic Region on Sunday to win the title on run rate. New York got major contributions from several players including Glen Hall, who scored a century in the team’s victory over the Director’s XI on Saturday. On Sunday, Kevin Darlington won the Man of the Match award for his top order demolition of the Atlantic team, finishing with 3 for 16 as Atlantic was bowled out for 82. This followed up on his 4 for 35 against South East on Friday.

South East, who finished as the runner-up due to the tiebreaker of net run rate, even though they had the same record as New York and beat them on Friday, also had some brilliant performances. Captain Nasir “Charlie” Javed finished as the leading wicket-taker in the tournament. Timroy Allen took both Man of the Match awards for each South East victory. On Friday against New York he took 4 for 28 and scored 13* to finish the match while on Sunday he took one wicket and finished 39* as part of a match-winning 88 run eighth wicket partnership with Anand Tummala in South East’s victory over Director’s XI by 2 wickets. Finishing second has left them hungry to come to Houston for the USACA National Championship in October gunning for the title.

“We learned a few lessons here as a team and as an individual I did learn a couple of lessons,” said Tummala, who finished with 3 wickets and 113 runs, including one half-century in the tourney. “I think cricket is a game which makes an individual make mistakes. The fewer mistakes you make, the better cricketer you are. So I’ll try and minimize the mistakes, what happened here. As a team I think we are gelling really well and I’m sure we will be a force to be reckoned with in Texas.”

Atlantic went from being 2-0 and in the driver’s seat to win the title on Sunday to a third place finish after the loss to New York. However, Gowkaran Roopnarine’s 70 in 79 balls against South East was one of the most scintillating innings of the tournament.

Meanwhile, the Director’s XI squad gave an opportunity for some of the top youth players on the east coast to test themselves against some of the nation’s best. The team, comprised mostly of Under-19 players, put up some respectable efforts in the tournament against three teams that had at least 11 current or former players on the US National Team playing for the regional squads, including six for New York. This made 18-year old Azurdeen “Andy” Mohammed’s century against the New York squad on Saturday all the more impressive.

“I thought we’ve played against some pretty decent players but young Mohammed played a great innings yesterday,” said Massiah. “I mean for someone his age, and I mean we have a pretty experienced attack, and he batted brilliantly. I think his innings over the last three days stood out.”

It wasn’t all fun and games though. Before and during the tournament, there were definitely some issues which were a cause for concern.

First was the fact that the North East Region pulled out of the event only days before it was supposed to begin. According to an official from USACA, the North East Region couldn’t come up with a budget necessary to finance a team to send to Washington, D.C. As a result, the Director’s XI squad was pulled together at the last minute - an opportunity that the young boys utilized

The lunches for the first two days of the tournament were brought to the grounds more than an hour after the scheduled innings/lunch break for the matches. But according to the President Dainty, that didn’t mean the lunches were late.  “The lunch was supposed to be at four o’clock. It got here around four o’clock. I don’t know that they had a set time for lunch.”

When pressed further as to why the lunches were scheduled to be ready from the caterers at 4 o’clock when 50 overs would be done at around 2:30 p.m. for each match, Dainty maintained his position. “I don’t know. I just brought the lunch when it’s supposed to be here. I don’t know. So what you’re saying there is news to me. We had a pretty good idea. We told the restaurant when we wanted it and I went and picked it up and that’s it.”

Most of the players were left frustrated with the circumstances, not to mention being out of energy. In the Atlantic vs. South East match on Saturday, the innings break started at 3 p.m. while lunch arrived at around 4:30. As a result, the first drinks break in the second innings lasted about 20-25 minutes so the players could eat, even though an official lunch break had already been taken in between innings.

South East was playing the tournament without the participation of any players from the Georgia Supreme Cricket League (GSCL) even though a team of the best players from the GSCL won the South East Region Inter-League tournament.  It remains to be seen if a full strength side will be sent from the South East to the USACA National Championship in Houston.

The on field behavior of some of the teams was also questionable, with prolonged and intimidating appeals directed towards the umpires which did not go down well with several USACA representatives who were present. The nadir was the five run penalty awarded to South East to end the final match of the tournament against Director’s XI because of wicketkeeper Carl Monroe’s use of “obscene language” despite several warnings to stop, according to umpires Nelson Hutchinson and George Richards. But most people agreed it was not the way a match should be decided, including the players from South East.

“I’m sure the umpire must have given them a few warnings before he took the decision of penalizing them with five runs,” said Tummala. “That’s not the right way to decide the game, especially for a young team, but I’m sure the quality of umpiring, what we’ve had in the last few days has been exceptionally good… There must have been something really bad out there which forced the umpires to take this kind of decision. That’s not the right way, that’s not how this great game of cricket should be decided, but discipline, there has to be a barometer that has to be followed.”

The fan support got bigger over the course of the weekend, but overall, it was not very high. However, that was not really of an immediate concern to Dainty before the weekend began.

“To tell you the truth, our focus has really not been about turnout,” said Dainty. “It’s about presenting the players with an opportunity to play a higher level of cricket. In terms of the fans and marketing for fans, I have no way of calculating or predicting because that was not a focus in terms of putting this together. We want to have tournaments where very good players are competing against each other.”

However, by the end of the weekend, Dainty was very hopeful that when the overall quality of play rises in America, as it has been over the past year with the organization of more competitive tournaments, the fans will start to come.

“Well I think that good cricket, we need to have good cricket more frequently,” said Dainty during a separate interview at the conclusion of the tournament. “Cricket people are connoisseurs. They understand the game. They know the game. If you present them with an inferior product, it turns them off. But I think that over the past few days, the word was spreading.”

Hopefully, the word is spreading to Minneapolis. The USACA Western Conference Tournament will be featuring more of the best talent in the United States. The South West, North West, Central West and Central East will be competing with the top two finishers joining New York and South East in Houston this October. A good blend of youth and experience will be on hand, just as it was in Washington, D.C. Several stars will be in attendance from the U-19 and senior levels and by having the tournament in Minneapolis, USACA is hoping to spread the game and bring awareness to cricket outside of the major centers of the Western Conference like Chicago and Los Angeles.

The South West will feature Aditya Thyagarajan, who is a regular member of the US National Team, while the Central West has selected Ryan Corns in their squad. Corns was one of the stars of the U-19 National Tournament over Memorial Day weekend in Brooklyn, N.Y. and continued to showcase his dazzling all-round skills for Team USA’s U-19 squad at the ICC Americas U-19 Regional Qualifier in Toronto at the start of July.

The complete awards presentation ceremony of the USACA Eastern Conference Tournament 2009 from Peter Della Penna on Vimeo.