AZTwenty20 gears for Quarter Finals at the end of the Round Robin PhaseAuthor : Anand Kumar
Before AZTwenty20 Summer Cricket Tournament moves to Quarter Final rounds, it saw Nawaabs and Veerans registering their consolation wins against Tucson Cricket Club and Arizona Friends respectively, while KINGS, Metro Stars and Spartans won convincingly against Valley Eagles, Arizona Cricket Club and Cavaliers respectively. Metro Suns however forfeited their last game to Ocean’s blue.
Quarter Finals are this weekend: Kingfishers Kings, Metro Suns, Oceans Blue and Valley Eagles qualify for quarters from the BLUE group while Phoenix Cricket Club, Metro Stars, Cavaliers and Spartans qualify from RED Group. As per the tournament Structure, the top seeded team from the BLUE Group would play the bottom ranked team from the red group and so on and so forth, so KINGS would play Spartans, Metro Suns would play Cavaliers, Oceans Blue would play Phoenix Cricket Club and Metro Stars would play Valley Eagles this weekend in the exciting knockout quarter final round. The complete schedule could be found here.
Game 1: Kingfishers Nawaabs Vs Tucson Cricket Club @ Chandler:
Nawaabs won the toss and batted first. Playing for the pride in the last game and also with a glimmer of hope of making into the quarter finals from the RED group, Nawaabs regrouped well as a team even though they missed some of their key players and scored 128/8 in 20 overs. Sulabh Shukla (15 off 24, 2x4), Chirag Vyas (25 off 20, 2x4), Elam (26 off 29, 1x4) and Debasish Bannerjee (14 off 18, 2x4) were instrumental in taking Nawaabs to a decent total.
Chirag Vyas bowled equally well as he claimed 5/21 and Venkat Anand supported him well who claimed 4/16 and restricted Tucson Cricket Club for a paltry 74, winning the game by 55 runs. However, Spartans won against Cavaliers convincingly denying any quarter final honors for Nawaabs despite this convincing win.
Brief Scores:
Result: Nawaabs won by 55 runs.
Game 2: Oceans Blue Vs Metro Suns @ Washington (E):
Metro Suns forfeited against Ocean’s Blue and both qualified for quarter finals.
Game 3: Spartans Vs Cavaliers@ Washington Park (W):
Coming into this game to secure their Quarter Final chances, Spartans rose to the occasion and did manage so in great style beating Cavaliers by a big margin of 67 runs. Winning the toss, Spartans decided to post a total and their opener Madhusudan was in killing mood as he cracked a 45 ball 70 that included as many as 11 boundaries and 2 sixes. Despite a top order failure, Giridhar (17 off 27, 1x4), Arun (20 off 17, 4x4) and Praveen (19 off 16, 2x4, 1x6) supported Madhusudan aptly and took Spartans to a big total of 170/8.
Barring the veteran Naren, the top order completely failed to the pace and accuracy of Mahendran from Spartans as he removed Anupam, Dharmesh and Prasad cheaply. Naren (25) and Dixon (14), did provide some hope towards the end, but it wasn’t good enough to surpass a total as big as 170.
Brief Scores:
Toss: Nawaabs won the toss and elected to field first.
Spartans – 170/8 in 20 overs
Cavaliers – 103/9 in 20 overs
Result: SPT won by 67 runs.
Game 4: KINGS Vs Valley Eagles@ Chandler
Valley eagles batted first and were all out for 85 in the 20th over. Their top order could not settle down against a four prong pace attack of KINGS comprising off Srinivas, Maheshwar, Mitul and Venkat while their lower order was unable to score runs against the slow bowling trio of captain Anand, Gopi and Mahesh. Eagles’ Champion Batsman, Atul Ranjan Prasad (15 off 21, 2x4) did provide some hope as he settled himself onto the crease, but once he was cleaned by Venkat, only Vishnu (11 off 26) and Manav (10 off 20) reached double figures.
KINGS chased 85 in 10 overs without losing a single wicket as the openers Praveen (39 off 28, 5x4, 1x6) and Maheshwar (33 off 33, 5x4) scored runs of every bowler right from the start.
Brief Scores:
Result: KINGS won by 10 wickets.
Game 5: Veerans Vs Arizona Friends@ Washington (E)
Arizona Friends batted first and put up a decent total of 130 in 20 overs. However, Veerans were off to a blistering start as the opener Vasanth Jayaraman (55* off 43) and Hanumanth (11 off 13), played aggressively. Once Hanumanth was out, Praveen Gorthy (15 off 24) and Sankar (29 off 19) supported Vasanth well to win their last game of the tournament.
Brief Scores:
Result: Veerans won by 8 wickets.
Game 6: Metro Stars Vs Arizona Cricket Club @ Washington (W)
Metro Stars won the toss and batting first piled up a big total of 169/6 in 20 overs thanks to valuable contributions from Rajendra (26 off 22, 4x4, 1x6), Sanjay Rao (36 off 43, 4x4, 1x6), Rajan (23 off 15, 2x4, 1x6), Bhargav (35 off 23, 3x4, 2x6) and Vrushank (23 off 15, 3x4, 1x6).
ACC chasing the total however folded out for 85 and Metros won the game by a big margin of 84 runs.
Brief Scores:
Result: Metro Stars won by 84 runs.