By Orin Davidson
Dec. 15th, 2008
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At a time when the United States senior team is unhappy with their deserved rewards, the New York juniors were given their just due Sunday evening when the New York Tri State Youth Program honored the achievements of its young players at a brief but meaningful function at the Flowers Rehabilitation Center in Queens on Sunday.

This year has been a successful one for cricket in the Big Apple, none more so than the junior teams which all but dominated the national competitions, reaping a title and a runner up spot in the two staged earlier this year.

The Under-19 squad produced a near perfect performance in capturing the national title, playing unbeaten in four matches while the Under-15 team secured second place in the nationals, playing as well as they could but came up short in the playoffs.

They were all present on Sunday, at the function organized by the Tri State Training Program to receive trophies, plaques and medals all acquired through the good offices of the Tri State Youth Cricket Development Inc. Special Awards were also presented to individuals who were deemed helpful to the development of the New York cricket during the period.

Under the leadership of coach Linden Fraser and manager Lester Hooper the Under-19 team was the toast of the function, and they were presented with medals and plaques.
The entire squad comprising the adjusted squad: Gregory Sewdial, Sylovasen Kalimootoo, Asruddeen Mohammed, Ron Andrews, Kavishwar Bridgepaul, Keon Lake, Shaan Metha, Hugo D’Oliviera, Dominic Gomes, Lekiran Latchman, Rasheem James. Lookesh Subramani, Abdulla Syed and Cameron Mirza was present, except three.
Top player Saud Hossein and Andy Harricharran, original squad members who were deemed ineligible due to a late rule change, were nevertheless rewarded too.

The Under-15 team which suffered a close loss to California for the national title, was well represented by the squad comprising Andrew Ajodhi, Brandon Dat, George Domaille, Kweise Edmondson, Clifford Hamilton, Inzaman Khan, Cameron Mirza, Prashant Nair, Steven Sawh, Waqas Shah, Chris Singh, Trevor Singh, Hermanus Smith and Mesbah Udin.

At its formation, the main objective of the Tri State Training Program was to provide competition and training for the junior players of the Tri State area comprising New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

This year marked the second year the Tri State series was held which saw Eastern American League Youths emerge winners of the 45 overs a side competition. The champion team was present to accept the winning trophy and medals. The Twenty20 tournament was ruined by rain, resulting in Tri State Youth Club and Connecticut Youths being named joint champions, for which prizes were also presented.

From all appearances, the awards function will be an annual event that will continue to reward all outstanding performances by New York players and avoid any future occurrence of the bitter experience of the 2007 New York Under-19 team which came home empty handed after winning the national title that year.

The function was chaired by Clarence Modeste, president of the Nassau Cricket League, who stated cricket was rapidly gaining on soccer as the world’s most popular sport, and urged all stakeholders to keep up the good work in developing young players.