The USA Northwest Region's first-ever Under-19 tournament was played in the San Francisco Area over Memorial Day weekend, reports Deb K Das.
This event was unique, in that most of the 50-odd players were playing as teams against other U-19 league squads for the first time. The exception was the NCCA team, whose players had participated in USACA conducted U-19 nationals for the past two years; naturally, their experience made them favourites. The four leagues participating in the tournament were: Northern Califirnia Cricket Association (NCCA), California Cricket League (CCL), Bay Area Cricket Association (BACA) and the California Cricket Academy (CCA)
As per expectations, the NCCA team showed their experience to win all their games while pulling themselves out of trouble on a couple of occasions. The other teams shared the honors among them; each of the other leagues - CCA, CCL and BACA -- won one game each, and learnt a lot from this experience.
Game 1 : NCCA 271-9 : (Saqeeb Saleem 91, Prateek Tandon 42, Saad Khan 35, Pranav Pradhan 2-25, Arsh Buch 2-39) beat BACA 85 ( Happy 4-12, Mayank 2-5).
Game 2: CCL 202 (Rakesh Singh 103, Deep Sathe 4-34 ), beat CCA 140 (Deep Sathe 35, Rakesh Singh 5-19).
Game 3:: CCA 138 (Kapil 34, Pranay 17*, Saad Khan 4-32) lost To NCCA 139-5 (Himmy 50, Saad 38*, Deep Sathe 3-25 )
Game 4: CCL 143 ( Sameer 26, Harkamal 22 , Arsh 3-32, Pranav 2-23, Dushyant 2-4 Ameya 2-16) lost to BACA 144 for 7 ( Zubeir 68, Gaurav 23, Arsh 22, Kuldeep 3-16)
Game 5 : NCCA 195 (Himmy 33, Saqib 24, Harkamal 3-32) beat CCL 94 (Rakesh Singh 24, Saad Khan 3-21)
Game 6: CCA 138 (Kabir Chawla 47, Pranav Pradhan3-24) beat BACA 101 ( Neil 30, Pranay 3-22)
Notable performers were: MVP : Rakesh Singh, Best Batsman : Rakesh Singh; Best Bowler: Saad Khan;Best Fielder : Kuldeep; and Best Wicket keeper : Saami. And 14 year old Pranav Pradhan tied with Saad Khan and Rakesh Singh for the highest wickets in the tournament with eight wickets.
Rakesh Suri , Mahendra Patel , Prem Suri (the NWR youth coordinator) provided the logistics for conducting the tournament. Hemant Buch, Chairman of NW region, put this tournament through, and provided the U-19 youngsters with their first-time opportunity to participate with their peers in a competitive and healthy atmosphere.
Well I have to admit I would like to see a few more John Smiths in there, as I'm really eager for the game to grow among the locals, but this looks like good progress. One problem I do have is just the idea of these leagues (most of them exclusively Californian) playing each other. Why not have teams representing individual states? Or at least just call the teams Northern California, Bay Area, Los Angeles and so on. I think cricket needs real rivalries to grow, and I can't see how having the Northern Californian Cricket Association playing the Bay Area Cricket Association is anything more than artificial.
Congratulations and all, of course - but I thought the NW Region was no more. Shouldn't this have included SCCA, and been a West Coast Region event? And why no NWCL team?
I think the Bay Area cricket leagues evolved naturally, so they can tell each other apart even if we can't. They do have rivalries, and healthy ones. So do NCCA/SCCA, who play a "Raisinland" trophy every year.
As for state teams, I don't know if we'd have more or fewer teams competing if we did it that way - presently there are no affiliated leagues at all in OR, AZ, ID, NV, HI, or UT. There are teams, and social leagues, but not enough to be recognized by USACA. That leaves WA and CA [and a couple of Oregon teams in NWCL].
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