A nail-biting finish was the epitome of Wipro’s tournament- Ashoke Kumar, Runners up captain & organizer
Final match of the tournament, stakes were on high, Royal Strikers were needing 45 to win but Alas! They fell one run short and scores were tied. To decide the winner there was a super over. IT Hitters scored 7 runs for 1 wicket and Royal Strikers made exactly the same runs to tie the super over! This was the scene at Wipro’s tournament which was held at Bangalore. The captain of IT hitters-which was a runners up team talks about the event in detail.
“It was simply breathtaking! After the main match and super over was tied we were thinking to declare both teams as combined winners. But both the teams were ready for challenge and eventually we decided to play yet another match. Batting first we scored 60 from 10 overs and Royal Strikers chased it down in 2 nd extremely competitive environment and everyone enjoyed it a lot,” said Ashok.
It was a tennis ball tournament. Its format was very interesting and unique. “First of all teams were a mixture of boys and girls. It was a kind of mix cricket tournament. 2 girls were mandatory in a side. Each team had 10 players where the break up was 8 boys and 2 girls. The matches were played on knockout basis. Every team had 1 person from senior designation. There were 8 such teams in competition. Basically our motto was Har Koi Khelega,”said Ashoke.
“ There were 8 overs to be bowled per side. From which last over had to be bowled by girls. Three balls for one girl and other girl will complete the remaining over. Also while the girls were bowling, the batting was also done by girls. This was quite interesting and unique thing about our tournament. The organization of such tournament started last year and now we are planning to organize it every year”
This is not the only place where such tournament is being organized. “We have branches at different cities in India. This kind of tournament was also played in Hyderabad. It will be played at other locations too. Mainly it is a recreational activity for employees. There are around 400 to 500 people working in different department. By such means people will interact with eachother because usually in IT we see that not many look beyond their own department. However it is necessary that everyone will get mixed up for better work environment and complaisance. Employees get some free time and this activity helps companies to take their employees away from work giving them some free time,” said Ashoke.
Apart from being a captain of runners up team, Ashoke was also a co-organizer of the event.“There were few good players seen this year. I think from our team Sandeepto Roy and Kartikeyan were extremely good. From other team I think their captain Sandeep and a guy named as Gopi were terrific. There was no professional player involved and we picked these 8 teams based on people who are really interested and passionate about playing cricket, “said Ashoke.last over.
This is how the tournament ended. It was Ashoke, who is a software engineer, was accompanied by his colleague Mr.Kapil Mohan who is a delivery manager in organizing the tournament successfully.“We are now looking to organize such tournament every year. Every year the teams will keep changing as people move from one department to other or get a promotion or so. It was fun organizing the tournament this year so we are already planning about the innovation we can do in next edition. Hopefully that will be a level higher than the concluded tournament,” said Ashoke.