Niagara Cricket Club ends their 6 years draught by beating both Hamilton and Crescent CC in the playoffs last weekend to become 2007 District League Champions.  Lifting the Championship trophy on Sunday after the final game, the city team captain Tan Qureshi dedicated this win to Mr. Brian Hewitt, the club ex- president, a strong supporter of Cricket and a highly dedicated member for over 50 years. Mr. Hewitt passed away during mid season in August. “Brian would have loved to see Niagara Cricket Club winning the championship and this day” said Tan Qureshi.

On Saturday, playing the semi finals, a knock out game at Ridley College Cricket grounds, Niagara Cricket Club won the toss and elected to field first by putting Hamilton in to bat. Imran Aslam, Bilal Akhtar, Adeel Khan and Warna Peiris bowled well and kept Hamilton score to a modest total.  Hamilton team scored 158 in their allotted 40 overs for the loss of 9 wickets while Niagara Cricket Club ended up chasing the score in only 27 overs with a magnificent inning by Javed Mian of Niagara Cricket Club scoring 31. Nasir Mahmood 42 and Adeel Khan 32 all batted well in the middle order for the modest run chase.

H&D Cricket League – 2007 Champions

After the Saturday win, the stage was set for the championship game on Sunday between Niagara Cricket Club and the unbeaten team of Crescent CC.

With a rain delayed start, it was decided by the 2 league officiating umpires to have a limited overs of 25 in this final game. Crescent CC won the toss and elected to field first.  Niagara Cricket Club sent Adeel Khan and Warna Peiris to open up the batting. Right from the very first over, the tone was set by Adeel Khan who hit two sky sixer consecutive boundaries to the Crescent attack bowler Tawab Ikram. The scored reached to 15 runs in the first 6 balls of Tawab Ikram. It appeared that Khan was toying with the attack of Crescent CC while clubbing them all over the Mohawk Park right from the beginning. Getting few boundaries hit by Khan, Crescent CC skipper decided to change Tawab Ikram after giving him only one over. However the score continue to climb and crossed 50 in the first 6 overs. Adeel Khan 33, Warna Peiris 31, Austin Codington 29, Bilal Akhtar 30 all contributed to put a high total in the 21overs i.e. when the allotted time ran out. Tan Qureshi and Bilal Akhtar remained not when the total reached 157 for the loss of 6 wickets.

Batting under pressure while chasing a high total of 157 in 21 allotted overs, Crescent CC batting line up start to fall apart right from the beginning. They showed little resistance to the bowling attack of Austin Codington and Nasir Mahmood. Crescent CC lost their two quick wicket with score of only 6 on board in the very 2nd over and start to loose more wickets in short intervals one after another without scoring 15 rusn as their personal score. At the end, only one batsman, Mani,  managed to stay on the wicket scoring over 15 runs. Warna Peiris captured 3 key wickets of the top order Crescent batsmen. Closing the batting innings, Crescent CC,  managed to score only 121 runs when the allotted time ran out and umpires announced Niagara Cricket Club the Champions of 2007 Hamilton & District Cricket League Trophy.

Niagara Cricket Club elected their club player Warna Peiris as Man of the Match for the final champiosnhip game with his well managed knock of 31 runs as an opening batsman and capturing 3 key wickets of the top order Crescent CC batsmen. Warna’s contribution really made the major dent as he swung the game to Niagara Cricket single handedly. This championship game was totally dominate by Niagara Cricket in both bowling & batting skills over a stronger and unbeaten side of Crescent Cricket Club. Congratulations to Tan Qureshi, Javed Mian, Nasir Mahmood, Adeel Khan, Ash Jhanji, Graeme Murphy, Imran Aslam, Amit Sharma, Rizwan Aslam, Warna Peiris, and Austin Codrington to make Niagara Cricket Club  the 2007 H&D Cricket League Champions.