Knights win inaugural season of Shelburne Cricket Club

By Brian Lockhart

The Shelburne Knights claimed the inaugural season championship of the Shelburne Cricket Club with a win over the Shelburne Gladiators in the final series game on Sunday, September 5.

The Club played out a best-of-seven series to determine this year's champions and the series went the full seven games.

KTH Park is the home field for the Club.

In the final game the Knights won the toss and decided to bowl first. 

Opening for the Gladiators was Ahsen Siddiqui and Marlon Robinson. After an aggressive start by both the batsmen, the Gladiators were at a strong start putting pressure on the Knight bowling attack. However, Ahsen lost his wicket in the 4th over after batting furiously in the first 3 overs. 

After a few overs Marlon Robinson also lost his wicket. Following Ahsen's wicket came Samir Patel (Vice Captain) who is one of the best players for the Gladiators, and the captain of Shelburne Gladiators Weylin Kapp. 

Both the batsmen began dominating the Knight's bowling. However, bowler Harpreet in the 9th over was able to end this partnership between the two and took Samir Patel's important wicket. 

Weylin Kapp picked up the torch and played a captain's knock and brought the team to a grand total of 131 with the support of Lenroy Whorms, Muhammad Jamal, Muhammad Nasir, and Creg Parker to defend in the second inning. 

The second inning began with Knight's batsmen Hisaan Siddiqui and Vikas Vig walking in to bat. Both the batsmen began the game in an aggressive manner by attacking the bowler and position the ball with the boundary line from the start. But this great start by the opening pair came to a steady slow in the middle overs when the Knights lost many wickets in the middle of the game and the pressure was placed on the Knight's captain Rick Ramchand's shoulders. 

At that point in the game the team needed a miracle from their captain to pull them out of that extremely difficult situation as after the 17th over the knights lost nine wickets and the Gladiators just needed one wicket to win, while the knights needed 23 more runs to win in 18 balls.

Coming to the last over where the Gladiators still needed one wicket to win and the knights needed two runs to win in six balls, Bowler Samir Patel was on the bowling attack. He bowls the first ball to Rick Ramchand and it goes wide, making the game a tie and hoping to get a wicket in the next few deliveries to assure there is a super over to give the Gladiators a second chance to win this final.

Samir Patel bowled two dot balls, after which, making the knights need one run to win from three deliveries. The fourth ball of the final over and Samir bowls to Rick and he hits the ball down the square leg. The ball rapidly travels to the boundary and Knights score four runs to win the final game.

The Shelburne Knights became the official 2021 season's champions of the first-ever Shelburne Cricket Club Best of seven series Finals.