HDCL Ed Burn T/20 Championship

Crescent Cricket Club added HDCL Ed Burn Memorial T/20 to their tally of championships by defeating Halton Stars in a closely fought final in Hamilton on 4th October, 2009. Due to complete washout on Saturday due to overnight rain on Friday, both semi-finals and final were reduced to 15 overs a side affair.

In the first semi-final, Hamilton Cricket Club were put into bat by Crescent skipper and Hamilton team started off with a bang with their opener Ayaz Ali hammering the Crescent attack all over the park with a breezy fifty that included some lusty and thunderous sixes and fours to all parts of the field. Ayaz Ali with the help of some small yet aggressive contributions from his team mates, posted 131 in 15 overs. It was going to be a very tough score to chase down for Crescent but Crescent's best batsman Elyas Karim with the help of some Hamilton outfielders, was able to stay neck in neck with Hamilton run rate and managed to overhaul a very competitive score of 131 with relative ease. Hamilton Cricket Club perhaps played the best game of this season and were well disciplined and accepted the defeat as a true sporting team.

In the second semi-final, HDCL league runner-up St. Catherine Cricket Club squared off against undefeated Halton Stars who had not lost a single game in the preliminary stages of this competition. St. Catherine Cricket Club chose to bat first and were given a decent start by their openers but lost two many quick wickets in the middle of their innings in search of quick runs and were dismissed for 95 runs in their allotted overs. Halton Stars started off with a bang with their openers in pursuit of 95 runs but St. Catherine came back with some tight bowling and excellent groud fielding to peg back Halton Star's charge towards victory. Imran Raja from Halton Stars, who has been their main performer with bat in preliminary stages, once again came to the rescue of his club by taking Halton Stars in to the finals with some clean and precise hitting.

The final was expected to be a cracker of a game between the two best teams of this competition. Crescent invited Halton Stars to bat first after winning the toss. Halton Stars started off blazing with their openers but a tight and best spell of spin bowling from star bowler of Crescent, Varinder Singh, broke the momentum of Halton Star's inning and restricted the score to 105 in 15 overs. Crescent started badly with both their openers back into the pavilion without much of a resistance after a very intelligent and quick bowling from Naveen Sehrai and Imran Raja. Ali Hafeez, captain of Crescent Cricket Club, after surviving a close run out call, with help from Elyas Karim went after the Halton Star bowlers and overhauled the score of 105 with relative ease in the end thus helping Crescent Cricket Club in closing off their successful season with yet another championship after winning the regular HDCL championship a weekend before in addition to wining the regular season trophy for most number of wins.

Congratulations to Crescent Cricket Club and all other clubs for thier cooperation and support in making this season of HDCL, a very successful one.

See you all at HDCL Presentation & Dinner on November 1st in Hamilton.