Commonwealth Cricket Club.
Labor Day has come and gone, and it is time once again for the Massachusetts State Cricket League (MSCL) playoffs, and the perennial championship contender Commonwealth Cricket Club (CCC) has qualified once again, as the number one seed with 10 wins and only 4 losses.
Losses to Lagaan and Guyana early in the season were both avenged with comprehensive victories but CCC sustained losses to Eagles and Boston Gymkhana A, which threatened their qualification march to the playoffs. However, some late season losses from some of the other contenders and Commonwealth’s victory over mighty Conway in the last league game, resulted in CCC securing a first-round bye in the playoffs. In spite of the results CCC has not really put together a complete game this season where all aspects, bowling, batting and fielding have come together.
Abdul Wahab is MSCL’s top bowler in Division-1 with 31 wickets.
Some CCC highlights include a 356 for 8 batting performance against Gymkhana B, with Fazal Alam getting out on 91 and a significant contribution of 74 from Donnohue Clarke. Runs flowed against Challengers with CCC reaching 271 all out in 38.4 overs, with Fazal Alam again with 92, and contributions from Anthony Brown (52) and Saqib Syed (59).
CCC then went on to win a number of low-scoring games when their batting under performed, and defending scores of 208 against Challengers (184) with Sarath Chandra (3), Muazzam Raja (1), Fazal Alam (2) and Abdul Wahab (2) amongst the wickets; 129 against BGSC B who were bowled out for 109 with Abdul Wahab leading the way with 4 wickets for 27 in his 8 overs; CCC 140 holding UMASS (134) with wickets from Munawar Abbasi (3) Sunny Iqbal (3) and Babar Abbasi (2).
Finally the big win against Conway with CCC making 269 and getting Conway out for 133. Munawar, Babar, Nipul, Hashim, and Brown getting runs, and Wahab with a 5-Fer and Fazal (3) wickets, cleaned up Conway’s big guns; Bruce Blackwood, Shawn Blackwood, Samuels, Dennis Evans, Campbell, Samms and Devovan Blake.
Fazal Alam has the second highest runs in the league with 541 runs from 13 matches.
CCC stalwarts and veterans from their last championship in 2012, Fazal Alam, Munawar and Babar Abasi, Hashim Khan, Qasim Butt, Abdul Wahab, Muazzam Raja, Sunny Iqbal and Mark Wright, have been joined by Donny Clarke, Anthony Brown, Kartik Prabhakar, Saqib Syed, Nipul Patel for the run towards the championship in 2015, and will play the winner of Conway or Guyana on Sunday, September 13.
Abdul Wahab is MSCL’s top bowler in Division-1 with 31 wickets including two five-wicket hauls and Fazal Alam with the second highest number of runs scored; 541 in 13 matches. And including five half-centuries.
Congratulations to Team CCC; this is their fourteenth successive semi-final since 2002 and seven championships. No other team has enjoyed such success, so CCC is hoping it can put two complete games together, and bring home its eight 40-Overs championship title, this year.