“Atlantis Nation” Women Headed To Atlanta
Atlantis Cricket Club – NY women’s team this weekend heads for the Peach State of Georgia, in search of their fourth consecutive Women’s T20 Cricket Tournament title.
The 5th Annual Atlanta Women’s Cricket T20 Tournament scheduled for May 23-24 in Atlanta, GA, has attracted players from as far as Zimbabwe, to Cayman Islands and neighboring Canada over the years; in addition to domestic teams in the USA.
This year a very strong Ontario Cricket Council XI, along with a CanAm United team and host team Atlanta Pearls are all expected to challenge Atlantis for the title. This year’s Atlantis squad will see some newcomers from across the nation and one outstanding player each from Canada and the twin-island Republic of Trinidad & Tobago.
Several of the regular Atlantis players were unavailable for this year’s tournament because of prior commitments, prompting the club to invite some newcomers.
Among the newcomers are Canadian Monali Patel, who has represented Canada on numerous occasions; making her debut at age 18, while playing in the Toronto and District leagues. She has also played competitive women’s cricket in Sydney, Australia and Trinidad & Tobago. Monali is a Cricket Australia Level 3 certified coach.
Trinidad & Tobago national player 17-year old Kamara Ragoobar, is another newcomer with international experience, having made her international debut for Trinidad & Tobago in 2013, while touring South Africa, and is now a regular on the T&T senior women’s national squad.
Rabia Shahid and Varada Joshi, both right-handed batswomen are products of the Dallas Women’s Cricket League’s development program. Rabia is a medium fast bowler and a middle order bat, while Varada, familiarly called VJ is an all-rounder and relishes batting at the top of the order.
Samiksha Aryal, a native of Nepal, is right-hand batswoman who’s very anxious and excited about playing women’s cricket in the USA, while Rohani Patel, a terrific teenage off-spinner and future USA prospect and Zeenat Kauser, are the other newcomers making their Atlantis debut.
Manager John Aaron, said, “Despite half of the squad being relative newcomers, I feel that the chemistry is there for the team to gel and give of their best in the matches. The ladies are very excited and I am confident that they will give 110% this weekend.” He added, “We have a balanced team of experienced and not so experienced players. Atlantis wanted to reach out and give some of the other players in the USA, a chance to play with the team in this tournament.”
The Atlantis squad is: Sindhu “Sins” Ashok (Captain), Neha Anand, Nadia “Nads” Gruny, Nisha Patel, Rabia Shahid, Kamara Ragoobar, Monali Patel, Samiksha Aryal, Varada “VJ” Joshi, Gita Venkat, Zeenat Kauser and Rohani Patel. Manager: John Aaron, Coach: Alfred Madray, Liaison Officer: Leslie “Tulu” Lewis.
The Atlantis women were so determined to participate in this year’s tournament and to defend their title that they started a solicitation drive and raised close to $5,000 in less than three days.
Atlantis wishes all of the tournament participants the best of luck, and look forward to renewing past friendships and making new ones. The club would also like to express its appreciation to Tournament Coordinator Petal Samuels and the Atlanta Pearls, for being such gracious hosts in the past, as well as the Georgia Women Cricket Association, for steadfastly sticking with the effort of helping women’s cricket grow in the United States of America.
