Canadian National T20 Cricket Championships: Day 1

Cricket Canada has announced a tournament for the Canadian National Men’s Championship in the T20 format.

Let's check it out on Day 1:

British Columbia (BC) and Ontario both won double wins Ontario and British Columbia (BC) both won double victories in Canada National T20 Championships opening day fixtures , enabling them to climb towards the summit of the respective group standings. 

Both teams have flawless records of two wins from the same number of matches played. 

Teams comprised of all ten the Cricket Canada's Member Provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, and Saskatchewan are competing for National T20 Championship honours in the 11-15 July 2022 event that is being played on the King City's Maple Leaf Cricket Club.

British Columbia (214/4-20) got its Group A campaign off to a flawless start by cruising to an easy win of 53 runs in its first match with New Brunswick (161/7-20). BC was however faced with an even tougher test from Saskatchewan who came close to creating the first major upset of the tournament. The Saskatchewan team responded to the posted score of 111/8-20. BC faced a tough time losing crucial wickets on a regular basis prior to their ninth wicket two Singhs pair: Ravinderpal (13*) and Newah (1*) finally saw BC home with a win.

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In the second Group A opening day match, Newfoundland (112/6-20) proved to be a tough opponent to Quebec (113/0-20) defeating to Quebec by 10 wickets. The win leaves Quebec with a flawless record of just one win from the only Day 1 match.

While BC was proving the utmost Group dominant position, Ontario had been doing the same thing in Group by scoring close to lopsided victories in both its opening day fixtures. A 105-run opening match with Shubham Sharma (55) and Rayyan Pathan (47) formed the basis for Ontario's comfortably 68 runs win in its first match against Nova Scotia in its opening match.

The first batsman of Ontario scored 158/3 off 20 overs. The innings led by Sharma's half-century, comprised of only 37 balls and eight fours and one six. Pathan's 47 was a bit less reckless, taking 48 balls, including seven boundaries.

Aiming for 159-run wins with a run rate of just 8 per game Nova Scotia was never in the game, and got off to a bad start , dropping their first three wickets Amit Joshi (4), Neel Patel (4) and Daksh Talwar (0) within the first two innings with only eight runs in the bank. Additional wickets fell in regular intervals, until Nova Scotia were taken out for 89. The Nova Scotians lost their final wicket on one of their four balls of the 20 the over, they fell just 69 short of their winning target.

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Ontario's second match of the opening day against Manitoba and a similar comfortably win for the hosts of the tournament. Batting first, Ontario scored 323/3-20 off Rayyan Pathan's explosive 55 balls 86 that included eight fours and 4 sixes. Armaan Kapoor also chipped in with 51 which was made from 35 balls with two sixes and four fours.

In response Manitoba in spite of Vasu Shah's 60 ball 67, which comprised 5 fours and 2 sixes, discovered Ontario's bowling attack helmed by Canadian National pacer Dilon Heyliger (3/23-3) to be a difficult task. Just a few runs away from 119/8 by the end of 20 overs, the team fell short of their goal of 64 runs.

The opening day of the Championship featured half centuries for Ontario's Rayyan Pathan (88), his teammates Shubham Shama (55) and Armaan Kapoor (51) as well as Québec's Yashwanath Reddy (73) and the New Brunswick's Divank Satwani (71) and British Columbia's Bhupinder Singh (69) as well as the Manitoba's Vasu Shah (67) and Newfoundland's Manik Arora (55). Of the bowlers, BC's Aaron Johnson had the day's highest score of 4/12-2. Three wickets were that were taken by Saskatchewan's Sarmad Anwar (3/14-4) as well as the Alberta's Rommel Shahzad (3/18-4) and Ontario's Dilon Heyliger (3/23-3).

The Championships will continue with day two on July 12. Day 2 fixtures featuring six matches: Quebec vs Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia vs Manitoba, Newfoundland against British Columbia, PEI vs Ontario, New Brunswick vs Saskatchewan and Alberta in a match against Manitoba. The schedule, results, and statistics for all matches are accessible through the Cricket Canada App.