Under-11 Finals: Bowie Repeats As Champions Over Germantown
It was a beautiful sunny day with low humidity, perfect weather for cricket. For the third year in a row, Bowie and Germantown met in the MYCA 11U Championship Game.
Germantown: 48 runs for 8 wickets in 16 overs. Raghav 11 runs, Nikhil 10 runs, Arth 9 runs.
Bowie: 49 runs for 0 wickets in 9 overs. Josue Ochaita 17 runs, Shaunak Marathe 9 runs, Joshua Chotoo 7 runs, Lisa Ramjit 4 runs. Sebastien Solomon 2 wickets, Alyssa Logan 2 wickets, Abhinav Samuel, Shaunak Marathe, William Harper, and Cooper Baltimore 1 wicket each.
Bowie won the toss and elected to field first. Germantown’s top batsman, Raghav, and Nikhil opened the batting. Paceman Alvin Kanapilly opened the bowling for Bowie. The Germantown openers batted sensibly by defending the good balls and going after the bad balls. Joshua Chotoo bowled a good second over except for one loose delivery down the leg-side, which Raghav dispatched to the boundary for 6 runs. Nikhil also got into the act by hitting Bowie’s Ayaan Osman and Abhinav Samuel for four. Abhinav struck back immediately to bowl Nikhil for 10 runs. Arth came in next and made a big hit for six runs off Lisa Ramjit’s bowling. Alyssa Logan put an end to Arth’s inning getting him caught behind by wicketkeeper Josue Ochaita. In that same over, the new batsman Barghav made a big hit off Alyssa into the cover region. That ball looked to be a sure four runs, but no one told that to Joshua Chotoo. Josh took 2 steps to his right, dove horizontally, caught the ball in mid-air 3 feet off the ground with both hands, pulled his hands to his body and rolled on the grass with the ball safely tucked away in his hands. Barghav was out for a duck giving Alyssa her second wicket. Germantown’s other solid batsman, Abhinav, joined Barghav at the wicket. He did not stay long though as Shaunak bowled him for a duck with a fast delivery. Germantown’s hard hitting batsman, Santosh, joined Raghav and they took the score to 38 runs for 4 wickets after 8 overs.
It was Bowie’s turn to bat and Coach Ren and Coach Roy decided to start with Lisa Ramjit and Alicia Fernando. Abhinav opened the bowling for Germantown and only gave up 1 run in his first over. The girls found it difficult to score against the tight bowling, but Lisa managed to get a four off Santosh’s bowling. After 3 overs, with Bowie’s total on 8 runs, Coach Ren and Coach Roy switched out the girls for Josue Ochaita and Joshua Chotoo. The boys immediately started attacking by hitting boundaries and picking up quick ones and twos. They took advantage of Germantown’s poor fielding to get some risky runs. Josue hit two fours in his 17 not out and Joshua got one four in his 7 runs not out. In the eight over, Shaunak and Alvin came in to bat. Shaunak hit a high ball to the fielder at the square-leg boundary, but he could not hold on to the catch and gave up two runs. The very next ball Shaunak got it right this time and easily cleared the boundary for a six with the ball going into the woods. After their first 8 overs, Bowie was 45 runs for 0 wickets.
It was Germantown’s turn to continue their inning with Raghav and Santosh, who were looking to at least double the score. But on the very first ball, Sebastien Solomon had the ball coming off Raghav’s glove and heading over the head of wicketkeeper Josue. Josue jumped up with his right arm fully extended upwards and was able block the ball and catch it on the way downwards to dismiss Raghav for 11 runs. That was an amazing catch to earn a big out. On the next ball, Germantown’s new batsman Ahkil did not stand a chance as the ball hit the bat handle and popped up in the air to give Josue his third victim. With Sebastien on a hat-trick and Mihir facing the heat, the third delivery missed the edge of the bat and the off stumped. Sebastien got a maiden over with 2 wickets. Santosh felt the pressure to score some runs, and hit the ball to extra cover, where Jared Garland was on the prowl to make a beautiful running catch. In their second 8 overs, Bowie’s excellent bowling restricted Germantown to 10 runs taking their total to 48 runs for 8 wickets off 16 overs.
With only 4 runs needed off 8 overs, Bowie’s Perry Baltimore and Dominique Harper easily led Bowie to victory.
For two years in a row, Bowie remained undefeated and successfully defended its 11U state title.
Man Of the Match: Josue Ochaita for his game high 17 runs and 4 amazing catches as wicketkeeper.
