A.Q. Siddiqui
A feather in his cap, Iftekhar Shareef, the well-known Indian community leader, is now the owner of cricket champions’ team, “Chicago Blasters”. Thanks to all his efforts, the game is revived in US for the cricket lovers. The matches are arranged on timely basis and well attended by cricket lovers. This week the Chicago Blasters played an historic match with the other Chicago based team, ‘Chicago Catchers’ on Saturday last week.
It was a great inspiring day for both team players as the match was attended by Indian Consul General Amit Kumar along with Iftekhar Shareef. The CG was welcomed by Iftekhar Shareef and team members.
Before the match began, a two minutes silence was observed in the memory of those who lost their lives on 9/11.
Amit Kumar congratulated the Chicago Blasters team owner Iftekhar Shareef for the successful arrangement and the team General Manager Khurram Syed. The CG was introduced to the players by Captains Ashar Mehdi and Karan Kumar respectively. He wished them good luck with the league matches. CG Kumar also bowled the ceremonial first ball ahead of the match and batted for one delivery with applauds from the spectators.
There was some excellent bowling, batting and fielding on display in a nail-biting T-20 match won by Chicago Blasters in the last over of the game. CG Kumar expressed optimism that this league involving 27 teams will help promote the wonderful game of cricket in USA and acknowledged the role of the Indian American community in that effort.
There are two other teams in the US Midwest based in Detroit and St Louis. In all, there are 27 teams in USA franchised by USA cricket. ICC has also extended support to this effort. USA Cricket currently enjoys Associate status with ICC and organization of the league is part of their foundational plan to promote cricket in USA.
Chicago Blasters won the match with 4 wickets in hand, Blasters won the toss and elected to put Catchers to bat. They scored 123 runs for the loss of four wickets in 20 overs, Karan Kumar 42, Salman Ahmed 21 and Pankaj Kampli, 26 were top scores. DataPrakash 2 wickets, Najam Iqbal and Jedd Joseph grabbed one wicket each. In reply Chicago Blasters scored 126 for six wickets in 19.1 overs. Unbeaten score of 59 runs by man of the match Fahad Babar helped Blasters win.
Chicago Blasters owner Iftekhar Shareef thanked the minor league and USA cricket for the opportunity to own a team.
Thank You For Your Vote!
Sorry You have Already Voted!
