State Awards Banquet Held; Financial Support For National Players Announced
On Saturday, the Maryland Youth Cricket Association held its third annual awards banquet, honoring its top players and teams from the 2019 season. The featured speaker for the event was Team Maryland and Team USA bowler Lisa Ramjit. Also speaking were longtime local coach and cricket mainstay Roxroy Anderson, Treasurer Sham Chotoo and Chairman Jamie Harrison.
During the gala it was announced that Ramjit would be the first recipient under a new program that rewards the families of current Maryland state players who also compete at the national level with Team USA. The program has been started with an annual award of $500 per player, but it is anticipated that this will increase over time. There is no limit to how many players each season would receive annual benefits under this program, as long as they meet the basic criteria.
There were many other big moments during the afternoon, including Jazba Shoes presenting a new pair of cricket spikes to each of the top batters and bowlers in the five state championship matches. Also, Shaffeel Ahmed was honored for his many years of hard work and dedication to Maryland Youth Cricket, such as in 2019 when, in addition to his duties as Scheduling & Stats Committee chair, he also took the lead in having two state championship matches live-streamed with commentary.
The state 14U side was honored for their outstanding 2019 season, a season in which they were champions in two tournaments and runners up in a third. Each player and coach received a customized state warm up jacket with their name on the back. In return, the team presented a large, framed team photograph to the state.
Maryland Youth Cricket wishes to recognize the hard work of Susan Chotoo, chair of the Events Committee, in organizing and managing the state awards banquet. Susan also is the state’s chief cricket photographer, and her work can be seen here, on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages and across the MYCA website. We are also indebted to Sham Chotoo for his management of the trophies and awards, and Shaffeel Ahmed for creating the printed programs for the event.
Here are this year’s major award winners:
Division Champions:
Girls – Bowie
11U – Bowie 1
12U – Future Stars School of Cricket
14U – Future Stars School of Cricket
17U – WCL Cubs
Jazba Top Performers:
Girls – Hannah Christiansen, Breanna Young
11U – Grant Christiansen, Arna Gumgol
12U – Shiv Nair, Tanush Apte
14U – Govind Mohandas, Mihir Ganguli
17U – Ishan Sharma, Anirudh Chandran
Top Division Players (Batter, Bowler, MVP):
Girls – Sanika Zarkar, Bree Mullikin, Mary Grimmick
11U – Goutham Muvva, Akshay Garg, Akhil Chakravarthy
12U – Veer Banwait, Baladhithya Ravikumar, Shiv Nair
14U – Aaryan Batra, Tanush Apte, Amandeep Singh
17U – Nileesha Ratnayake, Mehir Ganguli, Ishan Sharma
Top State Players (Batter, Bowler, MVP):
12U 1 – Alvin Kanappily, Rithwik Puli, Prabhnoor Singh
12U 2 – Sai Dommaraju. Siddhant Jog, Akhil Chakravarthy
14U – Aditya Bharadwaj, Lisa Ramjit, Amandeep Singh
14U A – Anish Patel, Abhishek Mudireddy, Nikhil Varma
16U – Shanthan Gunti, Shankar Haridas, Arjun Rakheja
Coach of the Year
Girls – Karthic Subburam & Chitra Karthic (Chantilly)
11U – Richard Johnson (Bowie)
12U – Jaweed Mohammed (Rockville)
14U – Sandan Pothukuchi (Ellicott City)
17U – Sunny Sohal (WCL Cubs)
