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September 10, 2006 The 3rd Annual Damian Mills Memorial Match brought yet another amazing day of competition, heart, and camaraderie. The match held in the late Damian's honor took place on a beautiful sunny afternoon at the Assiniboine Park Centre pitch. The Winnipeg Juniors Cricket Club Honorary XI consisted of WJCC players of past and present, most of whom played with Damian. Their opponent was the MCA Senior League XI, consisting of some of best players in the MCA, most of whom played against Damian or with him on provincial teams. MCA XI captain Suresh Jayaraman won the toss and elected to put WJCC in to bat first. All of the players sported yellow ribbons in memory of Damian as they watched Damian's father, Barry Mills face the opening ball of the match with an eloquent drive off the back foot. On with the match! As the Mills family and the many spectators watched on, opening batsmen Tommy Jilani and Matt Dalloo took to the wicket to get things started off for WJCC. However, it didn't take long for opening bowler Hitesh Modha (2-38) to strike, quickly bowling down Dalloo (7). After Modha's 2nd wicket, two of this seasons top run scorers in Ihsan Khan and Harinder Warring settled into a grove. With an array of power and finesse shots all around the wicket, Khan made a quick-fire 45. After a fast start, Warring (61) showed excellent discipline and poise en route to an 87 run partnership with WJCC skipper Joe Lovelace. Lovelace and crowd favorite Keith Deonaraine proceeded to put on a clinic on running between the wickets, turning several ones and twos into twos and threes to keep the run-rate elevated. Another big partnership of 88 runs between Lovelace (77) and Deonaraine (38) took the score all the way to 268 before veteran Garvin Budhoo put the WJCC batting attack to a halt. Budhoo, primarily known for his batting, proceeded to take an outstanding 5 of the last 6 wickets before WJCC's allotted 50 overs were up. However, some great batting early on combine with a few lucky breaks gave WJCC a formidable total of 296. The MCA XI entered their innings with confidence, with a lightning fast outfield and a solid batting lineup right down to the end. Opening batsmen and league teammates Imdad Ali and Kamta Singh got off to a quick start, scoring 43 runs in the first 5 overs. Desparate to slow the attack of these batsmen, Lovelace brought on Anil Kaul who flow in from out of town to take part in this match. Kaul, who had not played in a long time, bowled intelligently by making the batsmen play away from their strengths. The veteran Kaul and the youngster Neil Barrate proceeded to stymie the MCA XI batsmen, with Kaul taking 5 of the first 6 wickets for only 35 runs! That performace combined with excellent fielding dashed the hopes of the MCA XI making a run at the sizeable total. The lone bright spot in the MCA XI innings was a steady 79 from the 2005 MCA best batsman Jayaraman. In the end, the MCA XI could only muster 241 runs from their 50 overs. The 55 run victory was the 3rd straight for the WJCC Honorary XI since the start of the annual match in 2004. Many thanks to all of the volunteers who made this day possible! |
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© 2006 Winnipeg Juniors Cricket Club |
