Anjuman-I-Islam emerge as winners in low scoring thriller

When the renowned teams in other group were winning matches on innings margin, it was a completely different story in group D for a match between Anjuman-I-Islam and Hansraj Morarji public school. Anjuman-I-Islam, a well-known school in Mumbai’s junior cricket, struggled to register an easy win in tournament opener. But eventually they won by 27 runs.

Famous for their strong batting line up, Anjuman-I-Islam opted to bat after winning the toss. But a tight bowling from Hansraj bowlers meant that they had to struggle to put the runs on board. Their two players were dismissed for golden duck including their opener Faiz Rathod who got out on 2nd delivery of match. The middle order tried to do some repair work with Manoj Prajapati and Vaibhav Tyagi scoring 36 and 24 each. But their efforts went in vain as next batsmen collapsed for single digit score. As a result, Anjuman-I-Islam scored 112 in 54 overs. Satyak Patel was pick of the Hansraj bowlers who took 5 wickets.

A low score meant that Ajuman-I-Islam had to bowl really well to stay alive in game. Their bowlers did exactly the same. It was the same story for Hansraj Morarji batsmen as they couldn’t take any advantage of restricting Anjuman-I-Islam to 112. They ended up scoring exactly the same no. of runs. Courtesy to 25 extras given away by Ajuman-I-Islam bowlers whereas Hansraj had conceded only a single extra run during their bowling. Faisal Patel and Aman Singh were the heroes for Ajuman-I-Islam as they picked up 4 and 3 wickets respectively.

Match was evenly poised as both teams scored exactly the same in their 1st innings. But Ajuman-I-Islam batsmen did same mistakes again in 2nd innings and ended up scoring 110, 2 runs shorter than their score in 1st innings. None of their batsman could cross a score of 20. Satyak Patel got a Fifer while their spinner Ayush Sharma ended up with 4 wickets.

Hansraj Morarji had to score 111 to win this match. It was indeed an arduous task given the low scores in three innings of match. Losing their openers early, Hansraj Morarji couldn’t survive in that pressure situation. They ended up at a score of 83 with 7 of their batsmen getting out at single digit score. It was Faisal Patel again who won it for Ajuman-I-Islam taking 6 wicket in 2nd innings and 10 wickets in match.

It was a narrow escape for Ajuman I-Islam but there was still plenty to learn for them in this match. This match was dominated by bowlers completely. Both these teams will be playing against Don Bosco and Paranjpe vidyala in their remaining couple of matches. It’s a neutral situation in group C with every team having equal chance to qualify for semi final.