Singapore: Ceylon Sports Club retains league title
The Singapore Division 1 League Championship went right down to the wire with the outcome very much in the balance until the final match
Dinesh Chelvathurai
09-Sep-2001
The Singapore Division 1 League Championship went right down to the wire
with the outcome very much in the balance until the final match. The
Singapore Cricket Club Padang held the key to the final outcome with two key
matches being played there on 11th and 12th August.
The Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) had to win its two remaining matches
against the Indian Association (IA) on 11th August and against Ceylon Sports
Club (CSC) on 12th August to win the Championship. IA had to beat SCC and
hope that the SCC beat CSC if they were to emerge as champions. CSC had the
straightforward task of having to beat SCC if they were to retain the title.
United World College (UWC) too had a mathematical chance of winning the
league but had to depend on weather ruining the SCC game against IA and then
hope that SCC beat CSC if they were to succeed in their title challenge.
On 11th August, IA defeated SCC by 39 runs in a game reduced to 30 overs a
side with Sandeep Seth's 46 being the difference between the two teams. The
SCC game against CSC therefore assumed greater significance for IA as a
defeat for CSC would have given IA its first ever league title.
CSC however were not in a charitable mood and reached 212/8 in their 50
overs on a slow wicket with Johann Pieris top scoring with 32 and Sajith
Sivanandan, T.Ravichandran, Buddhika Mendis, Zia Azeez and Sarika Prasad all
reaching twenty. SCC in reply threatened briefly while Rahul Kapoor (48) and
N.Balasubramaniam (17) were at the wicket. However, their dismissals brought
about a collapse and SCC were bowled out for 122 after having been 75/2.
Skipper Dinesh Chelvathurai took 4/18 while Sarika Prasad picked up 3/29.
CSC therefore retained the trophy for a second successive year with a
comfortable 90 run victory while IA and UWC finished in second and third
place respectively.
Steven Lynch of UWC took the batting honours in the league scoring 432 runs
while newly appointed National Captain Zubin Shroff occupied the second slot
in the averages. Kapila Mendis, last year's leading run getter Buddhika
Mendis and Dylan Dearing were the others who were in the runs during the
season. Kapila Mendis registered the highest score of 111 while Manish Shah
was the only other centurion.
IA's Sunder Mani was the leading wicket taker with 29 wickets including 3
five wicket hauls. T. Ravichandran of CSC achieved the best figures during
the league with 7/25 against IA.
The leading batsmen and bowlers during the league season were as follows:
Batting Runs Average 1. Stephen Lynch 432 48.00 2. Zubin Shroff 286 47.67 3. Dylan Dearing 302 43.14 4. Kapila Mendis 367 40.78 5. Buddhika Mendis 338 37.56 6. Manish Shah 220 36.67 7. Harish Dongre 289 36.13 8. Zeng Renchun 274 34.25 9. David Peevers 167 33.40 10. Rob Walpole 120 30.00
Bowling Wickets Average
1. Sunder Mani 29 9.69
2. Grant Stanley 19 11.21
3. Don McGowan 19 11.32
4. Mohammed Shoaib 19 11.47
5. T.Ravichandran 19 11.95
6. Sarika Prasad 17 12.12
7. Gaurav Tholia 19 13.79
8. R.Jayakumar 10 13.80
9. Dinesh Chelvathurai 16 14.44
10. Shazib Pervaiz 18 14.78
The season continues with the Playoffs featuring all 7 teams split into two
groups. The winners and runners up from each group