The U14 and U16 age-group teams’ from HPCA Cricket Academy (Bahrain) and Noor Sports Cricket Academy (Bahrain) took part in the GCC Cup 2021, organized at Vision Cricket Center in Sharjah from May 15th – 21st, 2021. The tournament was a four-team event, which saw two clubs from UAE (G Force Gladiators and G Force Strikers) compete along with them in the 30-overs format.
The tournament was organized by G Force Sports Services and High Performance Cricket Academy, Bahrain. In the absence of any under-age tournaments organized by Asian Cricket Council (ACC) in 2020 and 2021 so far, this tournament provided youngsters the opportunity to compete in a multi-team competition structure environment. International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Development officer Iqbal Sikander was present during the tournament and expressed his happiness at the standards maintained at the Vision Cricket Center ground and also said that the venue could host future age-group tournaments organized by ICC.
In the U16 category, Tanish (HPCA Bahrain) was the tournament’s highest run-getter with 261 runs to his name from 4 innings, followed by Ridhay Bhatia (G Force Gladiators) with 134 runs from 4 innings and Neel Prasad (G Force Strikers) with 132 runs in as many innings. Shreyas Kumar (G Force Gladiators) was the top wicket-taker in the U16 category with 9 wickets from 4 innings, followed by Rhean Alaric (Noor Sports Bahrain) with 8 wickets from 4 innings and Rishabh Ramakrishnan (HPCA Bahrain) with 7 wickets from as many innings.
In the U14 category, Dayyan Suhail (Noor Sports Bahrain) was the tournament’s highest run-getter with 95 runs to his name from 4 innings, followed by Shane Saldanha (G Force Gladiators) with 92 runs from 4 innings and Prathyush D (G Force Strikers) with 87 runs in as many innings. Dhairya Desai (G Force Gladiators) was the top wicket-taker in the U14 category with 9 wickets from 4 innings, followed by Nirvan Shetty (Noor Sports Bahrain) with 8 wickets from 4 innings and Ayaan Misbah (Noor Sports Bahrain) with 7 wickets from as many innings.
U14 Final Brief Score
G Force Gladiators 87 all out in 26.2 overs (Shane Saldanha 22, Nirvan Shetty 4/13, Arjun Gadoya 2/8, Tomas Philip 1/10) beat Noor Sports Bahrain 63 all out in 20.3 overs (Nihan Seth 20, Samarth Saxena 13, Aryan Iyer 4/13, Dhreya Desai 3/22, Ahmed Khudadad 1/7) by 24 runs
U16 Final Brief Scores
G Force Gladiators 161 all out in 30 overs (Sahib Abichandani 23, Ridhay Bhatia 51 not out, Vansh Kumar 22, Rishabh Ramesh 3/37, Rishabh Ramakrishnan 2/19, Nihar Sachin 2/10, Harshit Sheth 1/21) beat HPCA Bahrain 53 all out in 14.2 overs (Vishnu Menon 8 n.o, Shreyas Kumar 5/18, Aditya Bhatia 2/14, Saif Ali Khan 2/3, Rishi Suresh 1/17) by 108 runs
