Wrentham - 6/2/2018:  Its the first week of June 2018 and NECA20/20 cricket tournaments are well on its way.  The NECA board members (Ganesh Iyer, Raghuvir Leelasagar, Mahadevan Vasudevan, Ram Sundaram and Ujwal Raval) suffering from growing pains as this year 10 new teams were added to the existing 32 teams. The board members had been working tirelessly for months to put together the schedule. On the outset it appears a simple task, but to schedule 42 teams in 4 divisions is not a walk in the ball park. 42 teams were scheduled to play matches in the first weekend of June 2018. These matches are very exciting and everyone enjoys - win or lose. 

Among the many teams who played this weekend included two of the clubs namely LCC and ShaheenXI, two teams each. 

ShaheenXI-2 hosted LCC Tigers, ShaheenXI-1 hosted NECC Jaguars and LCC Lions were hosted by Sharon C.C. Legends.

ShaheenXI-2 vs LCC Tigers - June 2, 2018: I won the toss and elected to field first. Tigers Opener Mahesh and Krishna were dismissed early in the game by opening bowlers Zakir and Ghasan, respectively. Sudhakar and Ashish were now in charge and when Ashish was dismissed in Irfan's over caught by Khurram at square leg the long partnership came to an end but with the total rising to 44 for the loss of three wickets. Sudhakar, however, stayed on longer and carried on his attack with Guru Prasad on his side. This troublesome partnership for ShaheenXI-2 was finally put an end to by the Imam of Worcester Islamic Center (WIC) Asif Hirani who clean bowled Sudhakar at 26 and Abhishek for a single. The Imam was not done yet as almost immediately he dismissed Guru at 20 brilliantly stumped by Mujeeb. The score at this point was 88 runs for 6 wickets. Srinivasu determined to carry on the legacy set by Sudhakar and Guru put another dozen runs before he was stumped by Mujeeb in Zakir's over.

In Ramadan the month of fasting, the act of charity is paramount, so ShaheenXI gave another "extra" gift of 25 runs, and the Tigers racked up a total of 108 runs.

The first Shaheen causality was very early, followed by Mujeeb run out and soon after by Imam Asif. Irfan and Maqsood came to the rescue and between the two crossed 50 runs. Then came Abhishek thinking he was in an bowling alley knocking players like alley pins. With ShaheenXI-2 batting collapsing and Abhishek's 5 wickets, the Tigers prevailed. Abhishek ranked the best bowler in the four divisions combined. Imam Asif Hirani earned a position among the top ten.

LCC Lions vs SharonCC Legends- June 3, 2018: Legends won the toss and like ShaheenXI-2 chose fielding, Lions responded with a walloping 142 runs, and Legends failed to chase and lost by 60 runs. Lions Tushar Daine scored 46 runs, ranking 3rd in the Division. When the Lions roar, Legacy overcomes any set Legend.

ShaheenXI-1 vs NECC Jaguars - June 3, 2018: Next day, on behalf of ShaheenXI-1 I tossed the coin that had a crescent as its head. Jaguars knowing how difficult it is to sight the crescent on EID Day called it tails and sure enough the crescent was no where to be seen, but the Jaguars like ShaheenXI-2 and the Legends chose to field. 

Syed Faheem and Mukarram Hussain moved in to open for ShaheenXI-1.  Both scored at a fast run rate, but the first wicket of Mukarram fell at 17 runs. Ten runs later Baber Rao due to a misunderstanding between the batsmen was run out. Left hander Usman Qadri was stumped by Sohan bowled by Ranjith, but at this juncture 50 runs were already up on the scoreboard thanks to Faheem who appeared to be much in control. Faheem was joined by the captain and his elder brother Syed Najeeb. Both brothers were hitting every stroke in the book creating havoc among the Jaguars who were running every which way on the field. Ranjith resolved to put a stop to this brotherly union by dismissing Najeeb as he lofted the ball and was caught at backward point by Monish. Najeeb's 11 runs came only in 13 balls played.The score at the fall of 4 wickets was 75. Atif Siddique came in next and he stayed with Faheem until all 20 overs were exhausted. Atif scored 18 runs in 17 balls that included 2 boundaries. The most impressive play came from Syed Faheem who tirelessly with great finesse sent a ball over the fence for 6 and had another 5 boundaries to his credit. In 54 balls he managed to score an unbeaten 60 runs. This feat earned Syed Faheem(along with Parminder of BGSC-T) the rank of the highest scorer in the 4 divisions combined. ShaheenXI-1 had given the Jaguars a 120 runs to chase.

Two Jaguars descended on the pitch, Vivek and Ashish and soon were seen going back to the pavilion when Syed Najeeb caught and bowled Vivek. And Ashish was caught behind by Baber also on Syed Najeebs delivery. It appeared that Deekshit Reddy was ready to spend some time on the pitch, which he did. The partnership between Reddy and Santosh looked quite promising until Umair Siddique at point fielded a shot from Reddy, collected and threw the ball at the stumps while Santosh was racing toward the wickets. But Santosh lost the race as the ball directly hit the stumps and Santosh was run out. the jubilant Umair told me, "I could only see one wicket from the point position and I had to throw it knowing that you were backing up for me in case I missed." I was substituting for Faheem. The partnership between Deekshit Reddy and Ranjit were picking up at an alarming speed, but Moin Mirza put a stop to the growing threat dismissing both with the help of Baber making a fine catch behind the wicket. Baber also stumped Monish Reddy on Umair's over, and Umair also bowled Sathwick Reddy. Fast Pace M. Rizwan got the last wicket of Gauraw Singh again assisted by a fine catch by - you guessed it - Baber Rao, hence earning the number one position for fielding in the division tied with Murali Sanasari of Boston Risers who also had 4 dismissals to his name. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Syed Najeeb took out Sohan and uncrowned Taj Sheikh. Hence ranking 2 in the Bowling Stats in the Division. Jaguars reportedly fast but were not fast enough today in chasing the Eagle(Shaheen) - Shaheen won comfortably by 42 runs, hence earning the number one spot in their division B 

In Division C, Lions and Tigers made their marks first and third respectively. In Fielding Mujeeb Khan (ShaheenXI-2) and Rajanagan Rajan (Lions) both topped in dismissals 4 each, while Srinivasu (Tigers) had 3 dismissals to his credit.

The first week of NECA2020 was awesome as old king Sól was shining in his full glory. Here is the link to the NECA site listing the 42 teams along with the individual results of the matches.  ( https://neca2020.org/recentResults )