1st Atmiya Cup champions - Scarborough 11

Atmiya Cup Best Batsman - Manan Patel - Scarborough 11

Atmiya Cup Best Bowler - Bhumit Patel - Blood Brothers

Atmiya Cup - 24 teams competed all weekend even throughout the night for Hindu Mandir's first ever Atmiya Cricket Cup this past June 2008. The two final teams were Scarborough 11 versus the Blood Brothers with Scarborough 11 emerging as the champions. The final match came down to the last ball with the Blood Brothers needing 4 runs for the win but Scarborough bowling prevailed.

What made this tournament unforgettable and special was the presence of His Divine Holiness Hariprasad Swamiji who was present during the night matches including the finals which ended at 4:00 am early Monday morning!!! That evening the winners and runner ups were presented their trophies and medals at an awards presentation at the Hindu Mandir & Cultural Centre where Swamiji blessed the players and awarded them their prizes.

The tournament started off on Friday night with 6 teams playing till past midnight on a ground surrounded with flood lights. Saturday proved to be a bit of a challenge with storms washing out the two main cricket grounds. For a moment the organizers thought of postponing the tournament but instead with the support of all the participating teams and volunteers both cricket pitches were dried manually. Check out the pictures from Saturday to see everyone showing the true spirit of Atmiyata and coming together to help one another out. As you can see, everyone manually dug trenches and filled in the muddy spots through out the field. Howz that for cricket crazy!!!

With the pitches all set the tournament resumed till the wee hours of the night and again resuming on Sunday for a full day of non stop cricket! In the end 4 teams stood for the semi final - DMG vs Scarborough 11 and JP's boyz vs Blood Brothers.

The Hindu Mandir's first ever Cricket Tournament was definately a success with the talent that came out and the unity everyone showed in the community.