Right to Cricket Club (R2CC) won their 2nd TCC championship trophy thereby maintaining their clean record in the finals by defeating Cougars by 41 runs to be crowned as Champions of TCC Taped Ball Tournament Fall 2017 which comprised of 26 teams. This final was a match between two well matched teams with Cougars in their 9th final and on a 14 match winning streak and R2CC in their second final steamrolling all opponents in the playoffs on their way to the finals.

The final was played on October 7, 2017. R2CC won the toss and decided to bat first which was an obvious choice for R2CC. In-form Gurpreet and Rajdeep opened the innings for R2CC, Cougars nabbed Gurpreet on 2(4) quickly. Kushal walked in as R2CC hoped for another explosive innings from him. He didn’t disappoint and immediately took a charge and hammered 11,12 and 13 runs in next 3 consecutive overs. Rajdeep and Kushal added quickfire 72 runs in 8 overs until Kushal was caught at short leg on 36(25) attempting a big shot. Rajdeep’s swashbuckling innings ended in the 11th over when he was caught at deep mid-wicket boundary on 40(27). Anurag 17(11) and Rishi 17(25) continued the positive batting in the middle overs. R2CC lost wickets in between and were 121/5 in 17 overs from 85/2 in 10 overs. Deep 21(14) and Srini 23(12) proved the depth in R2CC’s batting when they launched their final assault on Cougars in last three overs and posted a challenging total of 159/6 in 20 overs. Prabhu was the most successful bowler for Cougars with three wickets.

Cougars had a tough ask of chasing 160 for the win against a well-knit bowling attack. As it needed, they started their innings aggressively but lost their first wicket soon to a terrific catch by the wicket keeper Rajdeep of Happy’s wonderful out swinger. Despite the early breakthrough, Rahil and Ashwin continued their explosive batting and scored 41/1 in 4 overs in no time. Victor put the brakes on with a crucial breakthrough in the 5th over when Rahil was caught on mid-wicket by Anurag on 27(19). Ashwin 30(28) tried to hold the innings together but Cougars kept loosing wickets at regular intervals resulting in increasing run rate every over. Eventually Cougars were bowled out for 117 and R2CC won the Championship by 41 runs. Victor and Gurpreet were the most successful bowlers for R2CC bagging 3 wickets each. Happy and Deep chipped in with two wickets each.

The game was followed by a well-organized prize distribution ceremony arranged by TCC. TCC and teams were honored to have Mr. Malay Vyas from SLYCC. He is very well known for promoting youth cricket in Houston in a big way. He was felicitated by TCC with a plaque for his contribution to cricket in Houston especially youth cricket.

He spoke about his passion for cricket and how pleased he was to find so much cricket activity in Houston and lauded the efforts for TCC for youth cricket. He also encouraged everyone in supporting youth cricket here in Houston. His father also graced the occasion with his presence. Jagadish Biradar, the organizer for TCC Taped Ball tournament coordinated the presentation ceremony.

Rajdeep Das (Captain) & Anurag Srivastava (vice-captain), of R2CC were presented with the championship trophy

Ashwin Tandon, the captain of Cougars was presented with the runners up trophy.

The players of the Winners and Runners up teams up received individual trophies.

Man of the match for the final was Victor Jesudason from R2CC for his three crucial breakthroughs.

Abhishek from Houston Titans won the best batsman trophy for scoring 264 runs.
Gurpreet Singh from R2CC won both the best bowler and the best all-rounder trophies for his 20 wickets and 142 runs.

CK Swaroop from Cougars won the best wicket keeper for 31 catches

A special award was given to Prashanth Manne from Rattlers-Spartans from scoring a century.