Spartans won the TCC Fall 2011 Taped Ball Cricket T20 Tournament. Spartans beat Panthers by 6 wickets with 2 overs remaining in a relatively low scoring match. Spartans won the deserving championship in the well fought out tournament that had 14 participant teams.
Spartans won the toss and elected to bowl first on a chilly day. Panthers got off to a quiet start due to a run out and tight bowling by Nattu and Jhaleel. The innings was rebuilt by Kiran (8 runs) and Srinivas (12 runs). At the end of power play, the score was 23/1. Venky G from Spartans removed 3 wickets (Kiran, Srinivas and Swaroop) in one magical over and put Panthers on the back foot. Then on Spartans kept a tight line and kept pressure on Panthers. Good fielding resulted in 3 run outs. Dilip (23 runs), Adarsh(13 runs), Karthik(11 runs) and Bijeesh(14) played sensible cricket to help Panther score 107 in 20 overs. Venky G. was the pick of the bowlers with 4/19 supported by Jhaleel(2/17) and Shekar(1/17). Kashif had an excellent time behind the wickets picking 5 catches.
Chasing 108 in 20 overs, Spartans got off to a bad start losing in form batsman Kashif(2 runs) and opener Krishna in quick time due to an excellent opening spell by Siju. Jeeva(15 runs) with Nattu (2 runs) steadied the innings but both departed by the end of 6th over due to continued good bowling by Siju with support from Srinivas and Vamsee. The score was 28/4 in 6. Venky G. and Arup started rebuilding the innings without taking risks due to which the run rate climbed up. Once settled, Venky G. unleashed some superb shots all around the wicket to score 17 runs in the 9th over. By the end of 10th over, the score was 54/4. The match was still in balance and Panthers desperately needed wickets to come back in the match. Venky G.(49 runs) and Arup (29 runs) counter attacked and runs started flowing freely after a while. They ended up with a match winning unbeaten partnership of 80 runs. Siju (3/29) was the pick of the bowlers supported by Srinivas(1/13). The umpiring for the match was done by Suraj from Strikers and Sumit from Houston Arrows.
The game was followed by a well organized prize distribution ceremony arranged by TCC. The presentation party had Nanda Kumar president of TCC and HCL, members of TCC EC (Roshan, Krishna and Srinivas) and chief guest was Mr. Niraj Shah, an outstanding cricketer from Houston who has represented USA and is a great supporter of TCC. Mr. Niraj Shah was honored with a memento from TCC by Roshan. Jagadish Biradar, organizer for TCC Taped Ball tournament coordinated the presentation ceremony.
Nattu, the captain of Spartans was presented with the championship trophy and Adarsh, the captain of Panthers was presented with the runners up trophy. The players of the winners and runners up received individual trophies. Man of the match for the finals was Venky G. from Spartans.
Jeeva from Spartans won the Best Batsman trophy with 281 runs. Srinivas from Panthers won the Best Bowler trophy with 17 wickets. Srinivas again from Panthers won the Best All Rounder trophy with 158 runs and 17 wickets. Trophies were also given to the man of the match for Semi Finals and Quarter Finals. Kashif from Spartans and Karthik from Panthers were the recipients of the man of the match for Semi Finals. Dinesh from Gladiators, Kashif from Spartans, Kiran from Panthers and Sandip from ECC were the recipients of the man of the match for Quarter Finals. Raj from Stallions was awarded a special award for scoring 96 runs in one innings. Umpires for the final were also presented with the mementoes.