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By Peter Della Penna in Atlanta (with additional reporting by Sandra Ibarra in Los Angeles); File photos courtesy ICC
Glen
Hall set a solid platform for the third day in a row before Kevin
Darlington (Picture at right) decimated South East’s lineup to give New
York a 69-run win on Sunday at McNair Middle School at the USACA
Eastern Conference Tournament in College Park, Ga. Darlington was named
Man of the Match after taking 5 for 14 on the way to an undefeated
performance for New York, who won the tournament title for the second
consecutive year.
“I thought it was a very fulfilling victory,” said New York
captain Steve Massiah. “We played some very positive cricket in both
departments, in the batting and bowling, and overall I thought the
success of the youngsters was good to see.”
New York won the toss for the third day in a row and elected to
bat first in a match that was reduced to 40 overs due to flight
arrangements for the teams. Akeem Dodson fell softly for 3 to make it
14 for 1 when he guided a short and wide ball from medium pacer Ken
Singh straight to Anand Tummala at gully. Massiah then joined Hall and
the two put on a very solid 54-run stand for the second wicket. Massiah
in particular looked set for a century until he threw his wicket away
for 36, lofting a full delivery from Tummala to Zain Ali Syed at mid
off.
Andy Mohammed came in and quickly moved along to 17, but spin
bowler Hussain Haidar entered the attack and caused problems straight
away. Mohammed never seemed able to pick him and before long he gave
Haidar the charge in desperation but was beaten badly in flight to be
out stumped, making the score 109 for 3 in the 20th. Haider
struck again when he fooled Barrington Bartley, who played all around a
full ball to be bowled for 4 and the score became 123 for 4.
NY vs. South East Post Match Interview with Steve Massiah from Peter Della Penna on Vimeo.
Nasir “Charlie” Javed struck three times to put New York in a big hole
at 143 for 7 after 31. His first victim was Hall, who top edged an
attempted sweep that came down into the hands of Singh at slip for 54.
Cameron Mirza then tamely chipped a return catch to go for 8 before
Nicholas Standford was out LBW for a second-ball duck.
Andre Kirton was very unlucky to be runout without facing a ball
to reduce New York to 146 for 8. Denison Thomas stroked a delivery from
Timothy Surujbally down the ground for what should have been two runs.
As Kirton returned to the non-striker’s end for the second, the throw
came in from Moazzam Imtiaz and Surujbally clearly knocked off the
bails before he had received the ball. Despite protests from both
batsmen, Kirton was given out. To make the scene even more bizarre, New
York was then assessed five penalty runs for cursing at the umpires,
but that ruling was overturned during the innings break after it was
determined that the umpires did not follow protocol by giving New York
an official warning before awarding penalty runs to South East.
Adrian Gordon was bowled for 12 on the second ball of the 39th
over by Imtiaz. Three balls later, Thomas was runout for 31 going for a
quick single and New York was all out for 185 in 38.5 overs.
Even though the target was not the biggest of the weekend, New
York’s experienced bowling attack made them heavy favorites to defend
it and they followed through in a big way. From ball one, Darlington
bowled like a man possessed and in his second over he had Surujbally
out for 3, beaten for pace going for a hook, sending a top edge to
square leg where Mirza took the catch to make it 7 for 1.
Thomas took the second wicket, outsmarting Farhat Ullah with a
slower ball that Ullah fell over trying to sweep and was bowled for 13
to make it 17 for 2. Darlington then removed Tummala without scoring,
as a flat footed swish was edged to Dodson behind the stumps. Anthony
Sahadeo didn’t fare a whole lot better, producing a similar shot to
give Thomas a catch at second slip to be out for 1 and South East was
trembling at 19 for 4.
Thomas struck again as he took his second with another slower
ball. Ricky Nayar was out for 7 after he hit a full toss straight to
Standford at mid on to make it 27 for 5. One run later, Darlington
accounted for Japen Patel as the batsmen slapped a short and wide ball
to Kirton at point, who dove forward to take a superb catch and Patel
walked off for 2.
Syed and Imtiaz brought some respectability to the scorecard for
South East by putting on 43 runs for the seventh wicket. The
19-year-old Syed looked very impressive stroking the ball around the
ground, playing the pace bowlers in particular with tremendous
confidence. His performance made the decision to leave him out of the
lineup for South East’s previous two games look terribly mystifying,
especially since he was the MVP of the U-19 Eastern Conference
Tournament in Connecticut last month.
Just when both men started to give hope to South East, Imtiaz grew
impatient and in an attempt to up the run rate against the left arm
spin of Kirton, he tried to sweep a full ball and missed to be struck
in front and was given out LBW for 15. Syed finally departed for a top
score of 34 when he launched Kirton straight to substitute fielder
Stuart Mills coming in from long off to make it 93 for 8.
Adrian Gordon bowled Singh for 22 before Darlington returned late for a second spell and on the last ball of the 33rd over, he got Haidar to edge a delivery to Bartley in the slips for 5 to end the match as South East was bowled out for 116.
In the game between Atlantic and North East at Creel Park,
Atlantic hung on to win by 4 runs. With the win, Atlantic finished in
second place at 2-1 to qualify for the national championship due to be
held in November. Jay Singh scored a half-century in defeat for North
East, who finished the tournament winless.
At the post-tournament awards ceremony, Hall was named the Best
Batsmen of the Tournament for leading the run tally with 171 runs in
three innings with two 50s during the weekend. Neil McGarrell of
Atlantic was named the Best Bowler after tying for the tournament lead
with seven wickets, including a best performance of 4 for 18 in 7.5
overs against South East. Hall was also named Tournament MVP.
In Los Angeles, several outstanding individual milestones were
reached in the final two matches of the USACA Western Conference
Tournament. South West finished the tournament undefeated after a
7-wicket win over Central East.
The bowling star of the day was Abhemanyu Rajp, who took 7 for 35
to lead the way in bowling out Central East for 150 in 40 overs before
South West chased down the target with more than 20 overs to spare.
Rajp’s figures are believed to be a USACA National Tournament record.
“I bowled and bowled and bowled,” said Rajp. “I gave two runs,
three runs average every game. I was causing trouble, but I wasn’t
getting any wickets and finally all the wickets came through.”
In
the other game at Woodley, Central West defeated North West by 3
wickets to get their first win of the tournament, but it was North West
who finished in second place and qualified for the national
championship with a superior net run rate. North West posted 266 for 5
in 50 overs as James Crosthwaite contributed his third half-century in
as many games, scoring 87 to lead North West.
In reply, Central West put in a valiant effort to surpass North
West on net run rate, but the task was out of reach in the end. Central
West needed to pass the target inside of 33 overs to succeed in
overtaking North West and Ryan Corns (Picture at right) led the charge
by turning in the highest score of the weekend, smoking 119 in 77 balls
coming in at number three.
“I was just seeing the ball really good and coming out the middle
of the bat,” said Corns. “The runs just kept flowing and flowing and
flowing and then we lost one or two wickets. Orlando Baker came in and
I said to him from now it’s pretty much a Twenty20 game, we have to go
for it.”
When he departed, the score was 178 for 4 in the 29th
over with way too much work left to do in the run rate equation.
However, he made a strong impression on all those who were present,
including USA national team coach Clayton Lambert.
At the post-tournament awards ceremony, Rajp was named the
tournament’s Best Bowler for nine wickets in three games. Crosthwaite
was named Best Batsman after a phenomenal 245 runs in three innings
with three 50s. South West captain Mehul Dave was named Tournament MVP
for his economical bowling performances. Dave bowled 22 overs and took
4 for 49 in three games.
Match Scorecard
New York vs. South East
New York won by 69 runs
New York won the toss and elected to bat
Man of the Match: Kevin Darlington
New York Batting
Batsman Runs Balls 4s 6s Dismissal
G Hall 54 91 2 1 ct Singh b Javed
A Dodson+ 3 5 0 0 ct Tummala b Singh
S Massiah* 36 34 6 0 ct Syed b Tummala
A Mohammed 17 18 2 0 st Sahadeo+ b Haidar
B Bartley 4 14 0 0 b Haidar
C Mirza 8 17 0 0 ct & b Javed
D Thomas 31 28 1 1 runout (Imtiaz)
N Standford 0 2 0 0 LBW Javed
A Kirton 0 0 0 0 runout (Imtiaz/Surujbally)
A Gordon 12 24 0 0 b Imtiaz
K Darlington 1 2 0 0 not out
Total Extras 19 (0 no balls, 1 bye, 0 leg byes, 18 wides)
Team Total 185 all out in 38.5 overs
Fall of Wicket: 14/1 (Dodson), 68/2 (Massiah), 109/3 (Mohammed),
123/4 (Bartley) 134/5 (Hall), 143/6 (Mirza), 143/7 (Standford), 146/8
(Kirton), 183/9 (Gordon), 185/10 (Thomas).
South East Bowling Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
K Singh 7-1-41-1
A Tummala 8-0-41-1
M Imtiaz 4.5-0-26-1
H Haidar 8-0-27-2
N Javed 8-0-33-3
T Surujbally 3-0-16-0
South East Batting
Batsman Runs Balls 4s 6s Dismissal
T Surujbally 3 12 0 0 ct Mirza b Darlington
F Ullah 13 14 1 1 b Thomas
A Sahadeo+ 1 15 0 0 ct Thomas b Darlington
A Tummala 0 8 0 0 ct Dodson+ Darlington
V Nayar 7 8 0 1 ct Standford b Thomas
J Patel 2 7 0 0 ct Kirton b Darlington
Z Syed 34 46 3 0 ct sub (Mills) b Kirton
M Imtiaz 15 27 2 0 LBW Kirton
K Singh 22 34 2 0 b Gordon
N Javed 4 16 0 0 not out
H Haidar 5 16 0 0 ct Bartley b Darlington
Total Extras 10 (5 no balls, 0 byes, 0 leg byes, 5 wides)
Team Total 116 all out in 33 overs
Fall of Wicket: 7/1 (Surujbally), 17/2 (Ullah), 18/3 (Tummala),
19/4 (Sahadeo), 27/5 (Nayar), 28/6 (Patel), 71/7 (Imtiaz), 93/8 (Syed),
110/9 (Singh), 116/10 (Haidar).
New York Bowling Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
K Darlington 7-1-14-5
D Thomas 8-2-32-2
A Gordon 8-0-41-1
A Kirton 8-0-26-2
S Massiah 2-0-3-0