TORONTO: An unbeaten record of four wins from as many matches played piloted the Cedar Blues to Championship winning honors at the Friday August 13 to Sunday, August 15, 2021 Canadian National Women’s Championships, played at King City’s Maple Leaf Cricket Club.
The Cedar Blues won all four of its matches comprehensively by margins of 75 runs, 7 wickets, 9 wickets and 17 runs against the two other competing teams, the Maple Greens and Orange Oaks.
The Cedar Blues’ victories were bolstered by Divya Saxena’s aggressive batting. Saxena amassed 140 runs from only three innings batted at an outstanding 70.00 average and a monumental 172.84 strike rate.
She was ably supported by Achini Perera whose 99 runs Tournament aggregate, from 3 innings batted, give her a 33.00 average and a 102.06 strike rate. Mukwinder Gill was the Cedar Blue’s leading bowler, capturing 5 wickets at an average of 12.0 and an economy rate of 5.29.
Mahrukh Imtiaz, with 4 wickets at an 11.25 average and 4.09 economy rate also made an outstanding contribution to the Cedar Blues’ bowling. So too did Hiba Hamshad whose 4 wickets were taken at an average of 20.33 and a 4.69 economy rate.
Canadian National player Miryam Khokar was adjudged as the Tournament’s Most Valuable Player for her outstanding batting. Khokar’s four Tournament innings yielded 191 runs at a whopping 95.50 average at a 102.14 strike rate.
Khokar recorded scores of 74, 50, 16 and 51 in her four innings, which were also graced by a cumulative total of 35 boundaries. Besides Khokar and Saxena, the Orange Oak’s Amarpal Kaur was the only other batter with an above 100 run aggregate for the Tournament.
Kaur’s four innings aggregate was 118 runs at a 39.33 average and 107.27 strike rate. The Maple Green’s Saniyah Zia captured the Tournament’s bowling honors. Zia’s Championship leading 6 wickets were taken at a miserly 8.5 average and 3.92 economy rate. Maple Green’s Maliha Baig was adjudged the Championhips’Best Fielder.
Baig featured in a Tournament high 6 dismissals comprised of three caught behinds, two stumpings and one run-out. Thirty-six of Canada’s best women’s cricketers participated in the three day Championships, which involved the three teams playing against each other in a T20 round-robin match format.
Twenty-four of the participating players were Ontario based, while the remaining were gathered from Cricket Canada’s other Member Provinces. Performances at the August 13-15, 2021 Canadian National Women’s Cricket Championships will subsequently be used by the National Selection Panel to select the Canada’s team to participate in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier to be held later this year.
Canada will be competing against Argentina, Brazil and the USA with the top team progressing to the 2022 ICC Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifier tournament