The Cannons participated in the annual Deonarine Cup during this past week, a tournament we're yet to win despite coming close numerous times. There was a different look to it this year, with the addition of a 5th club stretching the tournament to 4 days.
We got started in the tournament opener last Tuesday against Scotia Strikers. A good all round effort from our bowlers restricted them to 8/117 off their 20. Skipper Zeeshan Ansari finished with the best figures of 2/20 off 4, Jaideep Singh close behind with 2/23 off his 4. Shadab Ahmed, Satnam Singh and Sagar Mandhan all took 1 each in good spells. Antony Roche (43 off 33) and Rakes Tripathi (38* off 30) led our chase, as we passed them with 5 wickets and 27 balls remaining for a solid start to the campaign. Scorecard
We were next up on Friday against NS Avengers. Batting first, we were never able to get any sustained momentum. Antony (30 off 19) and Rakesh (24 off 21) again briefly threatened in a 45 runs stand off only 29 balls, but we lost wickets with too much regularity and looked in danger of batting out the overs. Sagar (24* off 22) and Jaideep ensured we did, taking us to 8/136 off 20, under par but defendable against a team who had just been bowled out for 83 that morning. Avengers rejigged their order and got off to a flyer, having scored 56 before we took out first wicket after 4.2 overs. Spinners Zee (2/18 off 3) and Daksh Talwar (3/34 off 4) then induced a collapse of 5 wickets for only 20 runs, and Avengers still needed 61 with 5 wickets in hand. Unfortunately we would be left to rue some missed chances, and we were on the wrong side of some powerful hitting from their bat, as they sped to the target with no further loss and 43 balls remaining. Scorecard
Saturday saw us scheduled to play Titans, however consistent rain all day saw all three games abandoned. This took our chances of winning the Deo Cup out of our hands, relying on other results on the Sunday to go our way. Requiring Strikers to beat Titans in the first game, unfortunately the result didn't go our way and all we had to play for in our last game against East Coast CC was pride, and the motivation to stop them from winning the Cup for the second year in succession.
Sent in to bat by an ECCC team who needed to up their NRR to win the cup, again we couldn't build substantial partnerships and only managed a moderate score of 138 all out off 19.3. Again, too much was left to the lower order, and again it would be Sagar who helped boost our score at the end with 19 off 12 balls. Needing to chase down the target in 14.4 overs, they came out swinging, which played right into our hands. Their top 3 were all gone within the opening 4 overs, Shadab (1/10 off 3) and Satnam (2/20 off 3) doing the damage. Jaideep then took out their middle and lower order with a spell of 4/28 off his 4 overs, finally getting the rewards having had multiple chances missed of his bowling in earlier games. Left arm spinner Arshpreet Singh, playing his first game at the Div 1 level, also impressed taking 2/22 off his 3, as ECCC fell to 9/84. Their last wicket pair put on 21, but the win would be wrapped up with a comical run out with one bat refusing to run, and the other who wanted to run refusing to return to his crease. A 31 run win was a good finish to the Deo Cup for us and ensured we finished 2nd. Scorecard.
Unfortunately we were washed out against eventual champs Halifax Titans CC which took away our chance to overtake them, but our loss to Avengers put us in a position where the rain could hurt us. Congrats to Titans for again winning the Deo Cup.
