Strong Tournament Performance by Surge Cricket
On Monday 13th February the College’s first ever cricket team played in a large tournament at Sheridan College. Two groups of teams played round robin matches before the knockout phase. The team played Cambrian College first up. Solid batting, especially from Anmoldeep Singh Jassal, excellent fielding, and great bowling ensured the team won that comfortably 57-32.
They next played Loyalist College. The match was filled with the excitement and drama you can expect from cricket. It’s why people play and watch what is one of the top sports worldwide.
Loyalist batted first and scored 39 runs in their innings. Strong bowling from Aayush Chhadva and Hetul Gajjar kept the runs down, but it was still enough to put pressure on the SLC team for their turn at bat. In fact, it all came down the final over (6 balls left). Needing 13 runs to win the match, SLC lost two wickets and scored just one run off the first 3 balls bowled. And then the magic happened. Jaideep Singh took control.
Two runs were scored off the 4th ball bowled. It meant 10 runs were required for victory with only 2 balls to remaining in the match. Jaideep struck a powerful bullet of a shot that hit the 5th ball bowled to the back wall for six runs! Four runs needed off the last ball. Smack! He did it again – this time, 4 runs scored off the last ball, to win the match. Incredible. Final score SLC 40 - Loyalist 39.
These wins were enough to place SLC as the top team in its group. The team then faced DC/UOIT in the quarter final knockout phase. DC/UOIT batted first. Despite Hetul Gajjar getting a hat-trick (that’s 3 wickets in 3 balls; 2 from his last two balls bowled in the previous game and another wicket off his very first ball in this match) – the opposition amassed a sizeable total of 65 runs. That’s a lot of runs in this type of cricket.
SLC had a slow start but rallied later in their innings. When the last over started, SLC required 22 runs to win the game – that’s off just 6 balls! Jaideep Singh once again led the charge.
SLC didn’t score the 22 runs needed for a win. But, incredibly, through strong running and big hitting they scored 21 runs – and the game was now tied! Then came a sudden death over – 6 balls bowled to each team.
Unfortunately, it was not SLC’s time to win. SLC batted first but did not hit enough runs to finish as winners, with DC/UOIT scoring the winning run of the 3rd ball they faced. It’s a tough way to lose, especially coming back from so far. But that’s cricket for you.
Overall, a very strong performance by SLC. This was a solid all round team effort. Everyone contributed and with lots of positivity. Plenty to be super pleased about and lots to work on. Proud coaches. Word will be getting around the province that this team can play quality cricket against any opposition, and you can expect it to get better and better as the season continues.
Next tournament: Georgian College, Barrie, 14th March.
Team
Aayush Chhadva
Aditya Natubhai Ahir
Anmoldeep Singh Jassal
Gautam Sehgal
Hetul Gajjar
Jaideep Singh
Shashank Pentham
Assistant Coach – Mani Puri
Head Coach – Malcolm Anderson