LAUDER­HILL - The Chica­go Catch­ers etched their name in his­to­ry as they clinched the US Open Pre­mier Crick­et League 2024 ti­tle fol­low­ing a heart-stop­ping sev­en-run win in the fi­nale against the DC Ea­gles at the Cen­tral Broward Re­gion­al Park Sta­di­um Turf Ground in Flori­da, USA.

The DC Ea­gles, who won the toss and elect­ed to field, found them­selves chas­ing a chal­leng­ing tar­get af­ter the Catch­ers post­ed 162-8 in their 20 overs. Chica­go’s Ryan Har­ris starred in the in­nings, ham­mer­ing a fiery 42 off 21 de­liv­er­ies.

His in­nings fea­tured two bound­aries and four mas­sive six­es, set­ting the tone for his side’s com­pet­i­tive to­tal. DC Ea­gles’ Maaz Khur­ram im­pressed with the ball, claim­ing 3 wick­ets for 40 runs in his quo­ta of four overs.

The DC Ea­gles’ chase was marked by a valiant ef­fort from their top-or­der bat­ters. Nis­ar Wah­dat show­cased his class with a steady 59 off 52 balls, laced with five fours and two six­es. Guyanese open­er Trevon Grif­fith ig­nit­ed hopes of a suc­cess­ful chase with his elec­tri­fy­ing 46 off just 19 balls.

How­ev­er, the dis­ci­plined bowl­ing of Ja­maican off-spin­ner Kevin Da­ley who bagged 2-22 in 4 overs, and a de­ter­mined field­ing ef­fort, kept the Ea­gles at bay, re­strict­ing them to 155-5.

De­spite falling short in the fi­nal, DC Ea­gles’ play­ers dom­i­nat­ed the in­di­vid­ual ac­co­lades. The best bats­man of the tour­na­ment award went to Nis­ar Wah­dat, who amassed 216 runs in 5 in­nings at an out­stand­ing av­er­age of 108.00 and a strike rate of 116.76. The best bowler of the tour­na­ment was Hus­nain Bukhari who snared 14 wick­ets across six match­es, with an econ­o­my of 5.58 and an av­er­age of 9.57.

CMC