When I wrote about the Rutgers Bowling Club finishing eight pins off the podium at EIBT #2, the point was simple. Rutgers is much more than its football team, and even more than the varsity sports the NCAA sanctions. I am fortunate to be close to two of the club teams, the Rutgers Bowling Club and the Rutgers Cricket Club, where I serve as treasurer.
Bowling got its recognition last night. Now it’s time for Rutgers Cricket to get its much-deserved love.
Actually, it seems I’m not alone in this sentiment
as BobR noted on my bowling article:
“As in traditional Wednesday night bowling leagues, are they required to hold a beer in one hand while sending the ball down the alley? When can we expect coverage of the RU Cricket Club?”
To answer your question Bob, right now!
It is worth remembering who these athletes are. The average Rutgers student is not on a athletic scholarship worth tens of thousands of dollars a year, and is certainly not signing NIL deals that can reach into the millions. It goes without saying that that applies to the members of the cricket team. They are full-time students who pay their dues, practice around their class schedules, and compete for trophies most of campus does not know exist.
That is exactly what makes what they did this weekend so impressive.
Rutgers won the National College Cricket Association’s Northeast Zone Regional Tournament this weekend, beating Penn State by six wickets in the semifinal and UConn by seven wickets in the championship final on Sunday. The Scarlet Knights went 4-1, outscored their five opponents 855 runs to 497, and won both playoff games chasing, with 19 balls to spare in the semifinal and 15 in the final.
Rutgers finished the job.
Quick Primer
College cricket in the U.S. is mostly played as T20, which means each team bats once and gets 20 overs, or 120 legal deliveries, to score as many runs as it can. A few matches this weekend were trimmed to 18 overs a side. An innings ends when the overs run out or when 10 batters are out, and each dismissal is called a wicket.
A ball hit along the ground to the boundary rope is worth four runs. A ball that clears the rope on the fly is worth six. Think of a four like a ground rule double in baseball, and a six like a home run.
The result line tells you who batted when. A team that bats first and defends its total wins “by runs.” A team that chases wins “by wickets,” meaning how many batters it still had left when it passed the target. So when Rutgers beat UConn by seven wickets, they needed 142 runs, got them, and lost only three batters doing it.
Ten teams entered the regional. Each played three group games at Fino Field in Milford, Mass., and the top four on points and net run rate advanced to the semifinals and final at Athletic Field in Hopkinton.
Aravind Kalaivanan Hits 14 Sixes & Rutgers Wins Saturday by 360 Runs
Rutgers opened Saturday against RPI, won the toss, batted, and made 272/6 in 20 overs.
Vice-captain Aravind Kalaivanan made 115 of them off 37 balls.
Fourteen of his shots cleared the rope and two more reached it, so 92 of his 115 runs came in boundaries, and he scored at better than three runs a ball. Vedant Naik added 52 off 22 with seven sixes of his own, and Rutgers hit 25 sixes in the innings.
RPI was all out for 47 in 11.3 overs. Aarav Jani took three wickets for 18 runs, Shreshth Agrawal two for 10, Aarav Patel two for four in his only over, and Aneesh Joshi closed it out with two wickets for one run in nine balls. Naik took three catches. The margin was 225 runs.
Cornell was next in an 18-over game, and Abhiram Sridhar Gidugu took his turn. He made 80 off 41 balls with five fours and six sixes and was named Player of the Match. Rachit Shah made 46 off 32 at the other end, Naik hit four more sixes in a 37 off 14, and Rutgers posted 201/6.
Cornell managed 66/8. Seven Rutgers bowlers bowled, none of them gave up more than 20 runs, and Adityasriram Josyula bowled four overs for 12 with a maiden. Naik took three more catches. The margin was 135.
Two games, 360 runs of margin, all Rutgers.
Northeastern Takes the Group Finale Off the Last Two Balls
Sunday’s group finale against Northeastern was the only game of the weekend Rutgers lost, and it went to the last over.
Northeastern won the toss and bowled. Rutgers made 123/8 in 18 overs, with Gidugu and captain Adhiran Karthikraja each making 27, Karthikraja unbeaten, and Kalaivanan adding 24 off 16. Northeastern’s Abhishek Varia took three wickets and was Player of the Match.
The defense nearly held. Agrawal and Jani had Northeastern at 19/2 inside three overs, Josyula bowled four overs for 13 runs and two wickets, and Northeastern was 87/5 in the 14th over. Kalaivanan bowled the 20th and took two wickets in it, leaving Northeastern at 120/7 with two balls left and four runs needed.
Mohit Sharma found them.
Northeastern finished the group 3-0. Rutgers finished 2-1, level on points with Penn State, UConn and Yale for three semifinal spots, and advanced on net run rate at +6.138, more than four runs per over better than anyone else in the group.
That 360-run Saturday was not just a flex. It is why Rutgers was still playing.
Rachit Shah Carries the Semifinal Chase Against Penn State
The semifinal started just after 9 a.m., 18 overs a side, and Rutgers won the toss and bowled.
Penn State opened with Nirmay Vashi, who would finish the tournament as its leading wicket-taker. He lasted eight balls before Kalaivanan caught him off Jani, and Agrawal trapped Sawan Pandita lbw with the very next delivery. Penn State was 20/2.
Then Josyula and Aravind Moulee Ganesh choked the middle of the innings. They bowled eight overs between them for 27 runs, 32 of their 48 deliveries were dot balls, and Josyula took two wickets. Penn State was 61/4 in the 13th over.
Kalaivanan finished it. He took three wickets in two overs, Gidugu added one in his only over, and Penn State was 93/8 before Ryan Madhav hit 19 off six balls to get it to 116/8.
Rutgers needed 117, and Vashi took two wickets in his first two overs to make it 24/2. Shah did not let it get any further. Kalaivanan hit three fours in a 15 off 11, Naik made 16, and Shah batted through to the end, 60 not out off 42 balls with four fours and four sixes. Rutgers got there in 14.5 overs, and Kalaivanan was named Player of the Match.
Shreshth Agrawal Takes Three & UConn Never Recovers
The final started at 12:35 p.m., 41 minutes after the semifinal ended. Rutgers won the toss again and bowled again.
UConn had the tournament’s second-leading run-scorer in Karan Singh, and its openers had 27 on the board without loss inside four overs. Moulee Ganesh broke the stand with a caught-and-bowled to remove Sahil Chawla, and then Agrawal took over.
He had Singh caught by Karthikraja for 14. He had Prem Verma caught behind by wicketkeeper Aarav Patel. He had Dhrumil Shah caught by Kalaivanan. Three wickets in 17 balls, and when Josyula ran out Aarush Naik, UConn had gone from 27/0 to 50/5 in under five overs.
UConn does deserve credit for what came next. Hari T hit 31 off 23, Kushal Phulwani batted through for 45 not out, and UConn finished on 141/6. Agrawal ended with three wickets for 25, and Moulee Ganesh bowled four overs in a regional final for 16 runs with a maiden.
Rutgers needed 142. Shah went for 15 with the score at 37.
Then Gidugu and Karthikraja put on 74 for the second wicket. Gidugu made 63 off 46 with four sixes, and the captain finished it himself, 44 not out off 33 with three sixes of his own. Kalaivanan went for three, Naik walked out, and Rutgers finished at 142/3 in 17.3 overs.
Fifteen balls to spare.
Northeast Regional Champions.
Stats Breakdown
Abhiram Sridhar Gidugu led every batter in the tournament with 204 runs at a strike rate of 161.9, including 80 against Cornell and 63 in the final.
Aravind Kalaivanan, the vice-captain, scored 159 runs at a strike rate of 223.9 with 16 sixes, and took five wickets, three of them in the semifinal.
Rachit Shah made 157 runs, anchored the semifinal chase with 60 not out, and bowled two overs for seven runs with a maiden against Cornell.
Shreshth Agrawal took nine wickets, second in the tournament only to Vashi, and three of them came in the final.
Adhiran Karthikraja, the captain, scored 101 runs, was not out at the end of both the Northeastern game and the final, and took three catches.
Vedant Naik hit 113 runs at a strike rate of 176.6 with 12 sixes, and took six catches across Saturday’s two wins.
Adityasriram Josyula conceded just 3.81 runs per over across 16 overs, took six wickets and ran out two more batters.
Aravind Moulee Ganesh bowled 16 overs for 71 runs with two maidens, and broke UConn’s opening stand in the final.
Aarav Jani took six wickets, including three for 18 against RPI and Vashi’s in the semifinal.
Aneesh Joshi took three wickets for 13 runs in 4.3 overs, an economy rate under three.
Srisaran Sivakumar bowled a maiden against RPI, conceded 28 runs in six overs, and took catches against RPI, Northeastern and Penn State.
Aarav Patel kept wicket and took four catches behind the stumps, and against RPI he still found time to hit 17 off 11 and take two wickets for four runs in his only over.
Rutgers football has been in the Big Ten since 2014 and is still waiting on its first conference championship. Rutgers Cricket returned from a hiatus in the spring of 2023 and just won the Northeast.
A regional is not the Big Ten, but it works the same way. It’s a conference-sized field, a weekend of games and one trophy at the end. This field had 10 teams, including Penn State, UConn and four Ivy League schools, and Rutgers left Hopkinton holding the trophy.
The next time a Rutgers team plays for a national championship, it might not be on a football field. It might be in Houston, in March, with a bat.
Until then, the cricket club has something the football team has spent 13 Big Ten seasons chasing.
A championship trophy.
