Aziz Damani were crowned champions of Division I in the National Cricket League on the first time of asking.
Damani made progress from Division II champions last year to being the best team in the top division this year and in the process ending Tornado Bee’s four-year reign.
Tornado B dropped crucial points to Charity in the second round which inevitably blew any chance they had of defending the league. They finished 2nd despite beating champions Damani twice in the regular season.
An unbeaten second round campaign helped Kutchi Tigers finish the season on high and in 3rd place ahead of last seasons runners up Challengers. KICC finished a distant 5th and Charity survived the drop in 6th.
Nile and Partidar will play in Division II next season but the latter was the worst of the two. Partidar conceded up to 2000 runs this campaign with a record total of 535 against Charity.
Here is a summary of the individual stats;
Batting
Kutchi Tigers has 3 of the top 4 run getters in the league. Ragvani Shantilal scored the most runs in the season 554 with 4 fifties and one century. His colleagues Nanji Phindoria had 535 with 4 fifties and a century while Ronak Patel got 460 runs with 1 fifty and 3 centuries. Only Kyobe Arthur separates the team mates in 3rd position for a total of 505 runs with 2 fifties and 2 centuries.
A total of 72 fifties were scored and only 15 centuries in the whole season. Shantilal had the highest individual score of the season 164, and in his 6 innings Ronak scored 3 centuries and one fifty from less games than all the other top 4.
Since batting is the Achilles heel of the national team, only 5 national team players feature in the Top 10 with team anchor batsman Roger Mukasa in 14th place.
Bowling
Irfan Afridi has had a great year, from scoring the cricket cranes 1st century in 9 years in a major tournament to making a full senior debut for the national team as a hard hitter and also a mystery bowler. He was able to collect 33 wickets this season for his new employers with best bowling figures of 5/23 from his 105.5 overs. He is closely followed by U19 prodigy Kenneth Waiswa of Aziz Damani who had 30 wickets from 87.2 overs and best bowling figures of 6/17.
The evergreen Frank Nsubuga of KICC had the best bowling figures of the season picking up 8/6 in a game between KICC and Partidar.
There was a total of 24 fiver wicket hauls in the whole season with Frank Nsubuga (3) the most. The top 10 bowlers list is predominately dominated by indigenous players with only 2 players of Asian origin.
Fielding
Arnold Otwani of Aziz Damani held on to 19 catches and 1 stumping to finish as the top wicket keeper while Deus Muhumuza of Tornado Bee was the best fielder with 12 field dismissals.
Summary
Ronak Patel was moneys worth for Kutchi Tigers. His 460 runs were all scored in the second round and this helped them finish the second round unbeaten.
Irfan Afridi was also a great addition to Challengers whose mystery was crucial in some games even if they failed to match the heights of last season.
Kenneth Waiswa led the Aziz Damani attack brilliantly combining well with his senior Emmanuel Issanez (12 wickets) backed up by Brian Masaba (19 wickets) who had a season high after changing from medium pacers to leg spin.
