By Orin Davidson
May 23rd, 2009
A day of upsets threw the Western Conference into a conundrum as victories by Michigan (Central East Region) and Southern California (West Coast South) left all the teams equal on wins. As a result the competition is wide open with either of the four likely to advance to the final.

Southern California enacted the biggest thriller of the competiton so far by edging Northern California (West Coast North) at 88th Street Seaview minutes after Michigan handed Texas (Central West Region) a trouncing at Gateway Park.

Mevan Fernando saved his best performance for just the perfect occasion with Southern California facing elimination following a big loss the previous day. He went on to star with bat and ball to spur his team to a one wicket victory with two balls to spare. They nipped home after scoring 150-9 in 49.4 overs in reply to Northern California, the one-time national champions, who were bundled out for 149 in 43 overs.

Fernando led the way with a match winning 49 and had enough support from Sidhanth Dhuni with 32 to his team record the shock result. Saad Khan bagged three wickets for 24 runs for Northern California and despite hauls of 2-22 and 2-33 from Naseer Jamil and Hermandeep Kumar respectively, it was not good enough to make up for a poor batting display. Fernando was mainly responsible for Northern California’s demise as he captured 4-18 in a tremendous spell of medium fast bowling and duly carted off the Man of the Match award. He had excellent support from leg spinner Gurpreet Sandhu who picked up 3-34.

Zulfikl Nana topscored with 32 while Khan contributed 29 and Parany Suri 24.

Michigan produced a stunning batting display to record one of their biggest wins in the competition’s history to come within one win of reaching the tournament final for the first time. Despite more heroics from Ryan Corns, Michigan, who triumphed by 58 runs, had their answer in Sriverdana who was the architect of the victory as he starred with both bat and ball. He topscored with 65 as Michigan rattled up 275 all out in 48.2 overs.

Abjeet Joshi supported with a fine 40 and S. Sunil added 39. Karthik Vittala took 2-48 for Texas who were indebted to another stunning batting display by Corns who slammed 82 to follow up on 97 he made on Friday. The innings folded thereafter for 217 all out in 46 overs as Sriverdana returned with the ball to notch 2 wickets, to take the Man of the Match prize while T. Zameer also had two.

As a result, Texas and Northern California will go head to head while Michigan and Southern California will collide, all at 108th Street where net run rate might well decide the finalist, on Sunday.

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