The Red Deer Cricket Club (RDCC) carried their late season momentum into a tournament this past weekend at the 6-a-side tournament in Edmonton, rolling all the way to the semifinals of the five over, single knock-out event.
RDCC hammered the Gill Cricket Club in their first match 90-34. Fahad Saeed got RDCC off to a good start scoring 40 runs, while Richard Asghar added another 28. Aziz Rehman collected two wickets while Musa Naqvi and Zohaib Ahmed both got a wicket each. The 90 runs was a tournament high and also marked the largest point spread.
The second match wasn’t quite as easy. Red Deer ran into one of the top teams in Edmonton — Elite Cricket Club, and needed a comeback with the last ball of the match — a four-run hit by Asghar — to win 54-53. Asghar had a big game accounting for 32 runs for RDCC while Saeed scored 11. Naqvi took two wickets and Ismail Akhter gave up just two runs in his over.
The RDCC run came to an end in the semifinal as they fell 58-50 to Mill Woods Cricket Club, as another late comeback fell short. RDCC’s suffered a big blow early as their best hitter — Asghar — went out on his first ball. RDCC needed 22 runs to tie in the last over, but only came up with only 13. Naqvi had a solid all round semifinal, scoring 18 runs while batting and then taking a wicket and allowing just five runs in an over while bowling. Saeed also scored 12 runs while Rehman scored nine, Ahmed six and Akhter five.
l With the assistance of Mayor Morris Flewwelling, the Red Deer Cricket Club also honoured the top batsman and bowler for their inaugural season last week.
Richard Asghar was named top batsman, collecting 263 runs at an average of 52.6 per inning. He also scored 50 or more runs three times with a high of 74.
Atif F. Khan was named top bowler for his 13 wickets, a rate of 9.5 runs per wickets and a top performance of four wickets to 28 runs.