Auckland Warriors win NZ Tamil Super League T20 cricket tournament

The New Zealand Tamil Sports Association hosted its first T20 cricket tournament earlier last week in Christchurch participated by three cities in which the Auckland team came victorious.

New Zealand Tamil Sports Association was launched last year looking at the overwhelming appetite of different sports activities amongst young Tamil community in New Zealand.

This year the tournament was hosted in Christchurch on Saturday and Sunday, September 28 and 29 and three teams namely, Auckland Tamil Warriors, DTS Lions form Dunedin and CanTamil Super Tigers from Canterbury participated in the tournament.

New Zealand Tamil Sports Association in the coming years is aiming to draw more Tamil teams from Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Wellington and few other cities to take part in this tournament backed by the respective Tamil societies.

The tournament was welcomed by the members of all communities in ChCh that was attended by over 100 people as audience and Jimmy Chen, ChCh City Councillor; Hornby Ward, Chair of Multicultural Subcommittee, Chair-International Relations Working Group, Christchurch City Council.

The T20 round Robin was open to all age group of players and was held at Weedons Domain in Christchurch.

Auckland Tamil Warriors won two matches in the knockout defeating DTS Lions by 105 runs and Canterbury Super Kings by nine wickets. Canterbury team defeated DTS Lions by six runs to cement their place in the final against Auckland which they lost by four wickets in a thrilling and closely contested match.

Cyrus David from DTS Lions was awarded as the best batsman, Sayanthan Rasalingam from Auckland Tamil Warriors as the best bowler, Sathish Kumar from Auckland team for hitting the best 6, and Sanujan Thavarajah from Auckland for the best catch of the tournament.

“Following the Pongal event earlier this year, NZTSA organized a few cricket tournaments, and NZTSL was the first project out of Auckland, and we are in the process of also organizing a Soccer tournament for the community soon,” Meshan David, Secretary of NZTSA said.