Thanks to a famous victory over powerhouse Quebec, Cricket Newfoundland and Labrador claimed third place at the Eastern Canadian cricket championships held this past weekend in Halifax.
The win over Quebec was a team effort. Quebec batted first, and made 137 runs for 7 wickets, with Rahul Vashisht taking three wickets and Rakesh Negi two for NL.
Quebec had Cricket NL in trouble in their reply taking two early wickets, but 50 runs from Rahul Vashisht and 27 runs from Umair Khan took them close, and then a superb 37 run innings from Gurman Khurana under intense pressure took them to a 6 wicket victory.
It is rare for a team from Newfoundland and Labrador to beat Quebec at provincial level in any sport, so today’s victory by the provincial team is one to be celebrated. It is hard to get hard statistics of the number of cricketers in Quebec, but the Montreal leagues feature over 30 teams in two divisions- it is likely that Quebec cricketers number in the thousands, while Newfoundland’s team was picked from 60 players active in the Summer League.
Sunday’s win over Quebec took them to two wins and two losses- not quite enough to reach the final, where Quebec beat Nova Scotia. Newfoundland and Labrador thus registered the only win over the eventual champions.
The team had previously beaten PEI but lost to New Brunswick on Friday, and lost by a very narrow margin to Nova Scotia on Saturday.
Captain Rahul Vashisht was both top run-scorer in round robin play at the competition, with 185 runs; and top wicket taker with 9 wickets – an outstanding performance.