Faisal Anwar, captain of Yorkton's cricket team, is the top bowler in the Saskatchewan Cricket League (SCL) at the end of the T-20 regular season.
Anwar finished the 2013 season with 16 wickets, edging out Team Midway's Sam Khan, who took 15 wickets to fall just one wicket short of Anwar's league high pace.
The bowling performance in combination with a 13th place finish in batting (165 runs) and 21st place in fielding (four catches) gave Anwar a total of 117.19 MVP points a number which saw the president of the Yorkton Cricket Association take third place in the MVP voting for the T-20 calendar.
Yorkton leg-spin bowler Mandeep Singh also cracked the Top 10 in overall MVP points on the strength of his strong bowling. He finished 10th in the bowling rankings with 12 wickets, five short of Anwar, but his batting was not as strong. Singh finished 38th in batting for 97.37 MVP points a strong finish for the Yorkers second best player statistically.
Although the team's inaugural season in the T-20 format did not leave a lot to cheer about terms of the standings-the Yorkers finished dead last with just one win-Thom Barker, Yorkers public relations manager, said that there are positive indications that can be looked at to point at the Yorkers being a team on the rise once they get their footing.
"The statistics really tell the story of our season," he said. "In terms of bowling, we are up there with the best in the league. In terms of batting we're a middle-of-the-pack squad. It's our fielding we need to improve more than anything."
Barker pointed out that the Yorkers scored 1,127 runs over the course of 10 games, which was sixth out of 11 teams. The Jaguars, who finished in first place with only one loss, had 1,163 runs, just 36 more. The Jags, however, allowed only 1,151 runs compared to Yorkton's 1,389. If Yorkton could concede less runs in 2014 they could be one of the competing teams in the province based one their quality one-two punch of Anwar and Singh as bowlers and more than capable batsmen.
With five games left in the longer format One Day Provincial (ODP) league, and the Yorkers tied for seventh place just four points out of first, Barker said a playoff run is not out of the question. The same confidence from the numbers in the T-20 season leading him to believe that the Yorkers can put their money where their mouth is and put everything together for a potential run at the title or at the very least a high table finish.
"If we can just tighten up our defence a bit, we can compete with most of the teams in this league," Barker said. "A couple of wins over the next few weeks and we could be right in the hunt for the championship."
The pitching of Anwar has a lot to do with that, the President and Captain of the Yorkton Cricket Association providing more than just the inspiration for the surge of Yorkton cricket, he also provides the club with some of the best bowling in Saskatchewan.
Regardless of how their first season finishes, the success of Yorkton's cricket players in just one year of play with no official cricket ground in the city is an astonishing feat.
