New York stroll to U-19 title

The USA's Under-19 cricketers got an opportunity at last in Los Angeles to display the skills that had carried them through unbeaten in the Americas U-19 tournament in Canada five months ago.

The 2005 U-19 tournament had been postponed, and then relocated from Florida to Los Angeles a month ago. Given the uncertainties caused by the assorted hurricanes in Florida, this was probably an expedient move - southern California is one of the few places that can promise an equable cricket climate in mid-November, and Los Angeles has certainly proved that it has the facilities to organize and hold major tournaments - after all, it was also the default location last year for the delayed US national finals.

The tournament format was a somewhat truncated form of the 2004 version. Instead of three days of cricket during with each Zone played the other three, there were only two days of cricket with the first-day winners automatically placed in the second-day finals and the losers playing for third and fourth places.

Judging by the results, the new format definitely worked to the disadvantage of last year's finalist, the Atantic/SE Zone. They were beaten handily by the West (NW/SW) Zone, with their U-19 USA players Ravi Timbawala and Abhimanyu Rajp among the runs and the wickets respectively. This automatically put them out of the finals. Had there been a third match for them to play, they might have had a chance to break back into the tournament with a possible victory over New York who they had defeated in 2004. As it was, they showed what they were capable of in their decisive win over the Central Zone (CE and CW) for third place.

Meanwhile, New York/NE faced few problems in their march to the tournament victory. Having skittled out the Central Zone with almost as much ease as the Atlantic/SE Zone were to do the following day, they eked out a closer but comfortable victory over West Zone in the finals and captured the 2006 National tournament. Again, the New York/NE stars in the USA national team, Akeem Dodson and Hemant Punoo (USA U-19 captain), were credited with their batting for the New York victory.

Compared with the 2004 tournament, fewer runs were scored in 2005. There were no centuries this time (there were two in 2004); Akeem Dodson's 76 and unbeaten 71 for New York were by far the highest scores in the tournament, and established him as the best batsmen for the weekend; he was followed by Timbawala's unbeaten 60 against Atlantic /SE. On the bowling side, there was one five-wicket haul by Dominc Auden for NY/NE against Central Zone, and one four-wicket haul, by Nisarg Patel (West) against Atlantic SE.

Atlantic/SE 117 in 34.3 overs ( Romero Deane 22, Renardo Francis 19; Nisarg Patel 4-29, Nadir Malik 2-23, Abhemanyu Rajp 2-10) lost to West (NW/SW) 118 for 3 in 24.4 overs (Ravi Timbawala 60*, Mrunal Patel 19*; Tim Allen 2-30) by seven wickets

New York/NE 242 in 44.3 overs (A Dodson 76, K Ramsabad, D. Audain, N Hay, T Walters 16, K Ganesh 14; S Singh 3-46, J Makwana 3-60, R. Siddiqi 2-49, Wakas Khan 1-37, Shaham Mumtaz 1-33) beat Central West/Central East 64 (D Audain 5-19, F Mughal 2-15, T Walter 2-19) by 178 runs

Chamionship Game : West (NW/SW) 159 for 9 in 45 overs lost to New York/ NE 160 for 3 ( Akeem Dodson 71*, H Punoo 34*, K Ganesh 30 ) by seven wickets

Third & Fourth Place Game Atlantic/SE 322 for 9 in 45 overs (Bhatt 52, Francis 42, Allen 41,Nathaniel 58*) beat Central (CW/CE) 121 (Allen 3-45, Nathaniel 3-24) by 201 runs