Contributed by Aziz Savul
After seven weeks of exciting Twenty20 cricket, the two most deserving teams faced off in the grand final on Sunday November 22 at Plano cricket grounds in Russell Creek Park. From the outlook this final was between the experienced Plano Cubs versus the exuberant GPCC. The proceedings started on a somber note when the two teams lined up in the center to observe a moment of silence remembering three playing members of the NTCA family who passed away in the preceding four months. The members no longer among us are Sean Bahl, Romesh Algama and Faran Khan.
Grand Prairie Cricket Club (GPCC) players in their yellow shirts and black pants seemed full of energy as they warmed up in a circle near the east side of the ground. Plano Cricket Club Cubs (Plano Cubs) wearing navy blue shirts and white pants gathered near the south side of the pitch by the trees. The north side of the ground was decorated with sponsors' banners, a media table, trophies table and chairs for the spectators.
The most experienced umpire in NTCA, John Boaden along with the rising elite umpire Hemanth Lalwani, both dressed in black outfits supervised the toss. Plano Cubs' captain Vivek Inampudi won the toss and elected to bat first. It seemed like the right decision given the crisp air and bright sunshine.
Promptly at 11AM, Plano Cubs openers Prajwal Shetty and Arun Jasti stepped out to face Shahzad Khurshid from the north end. Prajwal coming on the heels of a fine 82 in the semifinal went for the full cover drive of the very first ball only to be dropped in the deep. Harris Sayed
was able to find rhythm from the other end. In his second over, Shahzad who had so far kept a good line just outside off was able to draw Arun for a drive that edged into Abdullah Rizvi's gloves. The very next ball saw Sai Madhavapeddi's furniture disturbed and GPCC were ecstatic. In the fifth over Prajwal played uppishly to long off where Faisal Akhtar ran up a few yards and held onto a good catch. Plano Cubs were 33-3 in 5 overs.
This brought the most experienced pair of the Plano Cubs to the crease in Gautham Morab and Vivek Inampudi. Except for one mistimed pull by Gautham to deep midwicket which was dropped when he was on naught, both batsmen put Twenty20 fervor on the side and started playing sensibly. Vivek scored risk-free 29 of 31 and was out caught at deep square leg when the total was 100 in 14 overs. Gautham on the other end hit a SIX to long off and a flick FOUR to bring up his fifty. He scored 53 of 42 and took the team total to 129 in 17 overs. The surprise selection of Vashsisht who had not played in the playoffs of the tournament paid off dividends when he scored 24 of 12 including a flat six over deep mid wicket where the trajectory of the ball hardly went over 5 ft 5 inches which coincidently is also the height of Vashi. Although small in stature he showed immense power and timing in his shots. Plano Cubs closed their innings at 164-8. Faisal sort of put some breaks by taking three late wickets coupled with the opening burst by Shahzad's 3 wickets. Plano Cubs scored 64 runs in the last 6 overs and thus setting up a decent 
total to defend.
The "expert" opinion on the sidelines by the media table was that GPCC has an explosive batting lineup all the way to number 8. If they could play the spin trio of Arjun, Anoop and Vivek then this total may be achieved rather easily.
Skipper Moazzam and ace batsman Faisal opened the innings. Plano Cubs made the first move and brought Arjun Rajagopalan in the second over of the innings. The plan paid off as Moazzam was bowled trying to pull. Faisal played sensibly along with Dev who has been in supreme form this year. Faisal tried to square cut Vashsisht only to find an acrobatic Hemanth Jetti who picked the catch inches off the ground. Before Faisal could take his pads off on the sidelines, Waqar Hussain played uppishly and without knowing where the ball was started for a run only to be run out by the bowler. Ironically, GPCC found themselves at 33-3, the same score as Plano Cubs at similar junction.
GPCC batting mirrored that of Plano Cubs. Haseeb and Dev started to build the innings nicely. They both hit some powerful boundaries and took the score to 95 in 12 overs when Haseeb hesitated slightly to Dev's call for a second run and was run out for 36 of 22. The next three overs proved crucial as Radha gave 22 runs in 4 overs; 111-4 in 15 overs.
Needing 54 of 5 overs with 5 wickets in hand, it was still anybody's game. Dev and Imran scored 15 runs and brought the equation down to less than 10 runs required in four overs with half the wickets intact. Gautham bowled a gem of an over to Imran and gave only 3 runs. 36 needed of 3 overs. Another good over giving only 8 runs by Arjun escalated the required rate to 14 runs per over. 10 runs came of the penultimate over by Gautham leaving Imran and Dev to get 18 of the last over. Imran was out run out first ball scoring 24 of 20 overs. Dev played an instrumental innings of 65 of 49 balls but without much acceleration from the other end. He was also run-out while being aided by a runner. In hindsight, Haseeb's run out turned out to be the turning point in the match. Looking at GPCC batting card there were four run-outs out of the six wickets that had fallen. Not taking anything away from the way Plano Cubs middle order batted and their bowling and fielding, it seems GPCC ran itself out of the match after they brought it within their grasp at several points during the match. They ended the innings at 156-6 in the allotted 20 overs.
This will definitely be remembered as a well contested final where both the deserving teams came pumped up to give their best. They did indeed give the 150 plus people present at the ground some entertaining cricket. The presence of the commentary team in Kamran Khan, Amer Sheikh and Ashwin Shankar added to the atmosphere. There was a kids' match being played on the adjacent pitch. The trophy presentation was carried out by the stalwarts of NTCA John Boaden and Anwer Shahabuddin.
Report by: Aziz Savul
