Strikers won the TCC Fall 2010 Taped Ball Cricket Twenty20 Tournament. Strikers beat Cougars by 6 wickets with around 5 overs remaining in an exciting match. Strikers won the deserving championship in the well fought out tournament that had 12 participant teams.

Strikers won the toss and opted to field first, as that was how they won most of their matches in the tournament. The decision turned out to be good one with the early morning dew helping the ball to zip off the track. Swaroop and Chaitanya started the innings for Cougars. Gopala opened the bowling for Strikers and he did a fantastic job by bowling 2 maiden overs. The pressure was maintained by Chandra at the other end. After the first 4 overs, the scorecard was 11/0. The pressure was building on Cougars. Amit was introduced in the attack and he immediately got a breakthrough with the wicket of Swaroop in his first over. In his next over, he got the important wicket of the big hitting Chaitanya due to a good catch by Gopala at long-off. Ashwin the captain came in next and he along with Suraj kept the scorecard ticking though at a slow rate. At the end of 10 overs the scorecard was 36/2 and thanks to some good fielding and tight bowling by Strikers.

Cougars were expected to come back strongly with 8 wickets in hand in the last 10 overs. Gopala started after the break and kept it tight yet again. Amit came back and got another breakthrough with the wicket of Suraj who did his bit in holding the innings thru 12 of 32 balls which was on the slower side. The wicket was due to a brilliant catch by Chandra at long-on. Sathish and Ashwin started to pick the tempo up and kept the scoreboard ticking at a brisk rate. Rajesh came back for his second spell and took the wicket of Ashwin and thanks to a good catch by Jagan behind the stumps. It was an important wicket as Ashwin was looking good. Sathish played a brilliant innings for his 30 runs accelerating the score in the last five overs. Wickets fell regularly at other end. This included couple of brilliant run-outs by SaiKumar and Chandra. Amit ended up with 4 wickets and Gopala ended up with 13 runs in 4 overs. The final scorecard was 92/8 in 20 overs.

Strikers started their innings with Jagan and Gaurav. While Gaurav was taking time to settle, Jagan looked pretty confident and scored 8 of 8 balls. Then came a moment of brilliance on the field where Rajesh Pant took an amazing catch to remove Jagan. Chandra came in next to score some quick runs and relieve the pressure because the scorecard was showing 19/1 in 5 overs due to some tight bowling and excellent fielding by Cougars. Chandra and Gaurav tore apart the attack in the next two overs to score 29 runs. The score card was 48/1 in 7 overs. This changed the temp of the game. Gaurav got out in the 9th over for a blistering 23 of 18 balls. At the end of 10 overs, the score was 63/2 in 10 overs.

With 32 required in 10 overs, the pressure was on Cougars but it was still a job to be done by Strikers in a high pressure final. Amit got out quickly after the break. Chandra finally got out trying to finish the things quickly. Chandra played a brilliant innings of 29 from 30 balls. It was his day and he made most of the dropped catches. The dropped catches of Chandra proved expensive for Cougars. SaiKumar the captain (14 runs) and Anup (9 runs) scored the remaining runs at a brisk rate to finish the match within 15 overs. Anup finished the innings with a cute boundary and a new champion emerged in the Taped ball tournament. Hassan was the pick of the bowlers for Cougars with 2 wickets for 12 runs of 3 overs.

Chandra was decided as the Man of the Match for his 29 runs, 2 catches and 1 run-out.

The tournament was a great turnaround for Strikers who were not even in the play offs in the last tournament just reiterating that Cricket is a game of great uncertainty. On the other hand, Cougars had an exciting tournament with them being not sure of qualifying for the play offs at one point but playing brilliantly in the quarter finals and Semi Finals to reach the Finals. It was Strikers who had a better day in the field and that made the difference in the match in the ultimate analysis.

Another highlight of the finals was high quality umpiring by Natraj and Prabhakar.

The game was followed by a well organized prize distribution ceremony arranged by TCC. The presentation party had Surya Saladi president of TCC, Nanda Kumar Vice President of HCL and chief guest Herman Geddes, a senior member of HCL and ex officio. Mr. Geddes was honored with a memento by TCC after an introduction by Nanda Kumar for his great work in HCL which includes helping organize various cricket events and establishing the Katy grounds for Houston cricket. Jagadish Biradar, organizer for TCC Taped Ball tournament coordinated the presentation ceremony.

SaiKumar, the captain of Strikers was handed over the winners trophy and Ashwin the captain of Cougars was handed over the runners up trophy. The players of the winners and runners up received individual trophies. Man of the match for the finals was Chandra from Strikers.Gaurav from Strikers won the Best Batsman trophy, Sumit from Panthers won the Best Bowler trophy. Sumit also won the Best All Rounder trophy. Trophies were also given to the man of the match for Semi Finals. Rajesh from Cougars and Rajesh from Strikers won the man of the match trophy for the Semi Finals.

Jagadish Biradar announced that the TCC Winter Taped ball tournament will be starting on Nov 6th, with participation from 13 teams.