Rutgers wins 2018 American College Cricket National Championship

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Rutgers University’s cricket team claimed the Shiv Chanderpaul Trophy by winning the 2018 American College Cricket National Championship against the University of South Alabama.

The final game was held on April 2 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Rutgers won the toss and elected to bowl first.

According to cricketworld.com, after hitting 33 runs in five overs, South Alabama lost three wickets for five runs.

A brief recovery partnership of 32 between Kinal Patel (17) and Amjad Muhammad (15) brought them up to 70 but Hassaan Wajeeh’s spin and Junaid Chaudhry ultimately brought them down with 82 all out.

Wajeeh got a four for seven, while Chaudhry took a four for 25, with two wickets for 12 for Anil Kumar, according to an American College Cricket press release.

Haider Ali (34) and Chaudhry (32) took Rutgers to victory as they won by 7 wickets in 13.3 overs.

Rutgers had made it to the finals in 2016 but ultimately lost against the University of South Florida but this year they beat the University of Florida, Virginia Tech, the University of Texas Dallas and the University of South Florida, losing to only MIT.

According to American College Cricket, Rutgers was part of the original teams that formed in March 2009 and only began competing very recently as they weren’t allowed to travel and though they made it to the 2010 nationals and won the 2010 North East regional, they were always overshadowed by Toronto’s Ryerson University.

The following were awarded after the match:

• Championship MVP: Amjad Muhammad, South Alabama
• Best Bowler: Hasaan Wajeeh, Rutgers
• Best Batsman: Neel Patel, South Alabama
• American College Cricket Season MVP Award: Arjun Verma, Harvard

The semi-finals and the finals of the 10^th American College Cricket National Championship were broadcast on SONY HD in the U.S. and Canada.