Ajanta Pharma into the finals of the E Div Times Shield’20

ICICI Sports Club winnings the toss invited Ajanta Pharma to bat first at Bharat CC, Shivaji Park.. Ajanta’s openers Omkar Rilkar & Ganesh Kadam gave a steady start of 42 runs in 9.3 overs. Ganesh got bowled to Aniket KS on 22 (28). Prashant Prindavankar walked in at No. 3. Prashant & Omkar carried the game nicely ahead till 95 runs. Partnership of 53 runs between Omkar & Prashant helped Ajanta to build up a strong base. Prashant 27 (41) got leg before to Nikhil S and then skipper of Ajanta Hanumant Matkar walked in & join with Omkar Rilkar in the situation of 95 for 2 in 20.5 overs.

Omkar & Hanumant moved ahead confidently with plenty of 1’s & 2’s. Both of them set a tremendous fitness example to the team & put an Ajanta’s total on 179 for 3 in 35.3 overs. Omkar 67 (103) was leg before to Aniket KS. Dhaval Panchal the next batter joins with skipper. Both, most experienced players of Ajanta Pharma and have played professional cricket in the past and playing currently as well.

It was a perfect time for Dhaval to walk in and accelerate the inning & he did it quite well. Dhaval scored quick 36 runs in 22 balls along with 4 hard hitting boundaries. Hanumant & Dhaval jointly made a partnership of 47 runs in just 4.3 overs and pushed Ajanta to 226 runs in 40.3 overs for the loss of 4 wickets. Ajanta’s hard hitters Jayesh Mhatre & Krishna Humane tried their best to raise the decent total on the board.

Skipper Hanumant Matkar’s knock was remarkable as he remained unbeaten scoring 80* in 57 balls with classic copy book 7 boundaries helping Ajanta to put a final total of 257 runs in 45 overs. Aniket KS of ICICI SC bowled tight 9 overs (9-1-33-2)

Nilesh Singh & Vishal Pawar gave a solid start for ICICI which set up a positive momentum. Nilesh hammered 6 boundaries in his 38 (54) while both the batters stitched a 51 run stand in 12.3 overs not before Akshay Amibke cleared the way for Vishal Singh by taking his wicket with a leg before. In the same over Nilesh got bowled by Akshay in what was a quick arm ball.

Akshay Ambike, Prashant Prindavankar & Krishna Humane bowled very tight line and restrict ICICI SC on 144/10 in 37.5 overs.  There was a brilliant catch by Krishna Humane at long on. Krishna bowled nicely (7-1-28-0). Prashant Prindavankawhor’s spell also was awesome (9-0-39-2). Star of Ajanta was certainly Akshay Ambike put ICICI on backfoot by his outstanding spell (9-1-23-4).

Words from skipper of Ajanta Pharma Hanumant Matkar:

We had planned before the match day that we are going to play on our strength. On match day, only one thing I told to my team that we are working hard and we don’t want to returned empty hands. After losing the toss, ICICI Bank invites us to bat first, which was part of our plan. As we have played many matches on Bharat C.C, we all knew that how good is the wicket to bat on. According to plan we were focusing on singles and doubles and put bad balls to boundary line. Our batters did a great job and we had scored a big total of 258 runs on the board.

We have good bowling options and they bowled very good spell when it was required. I must say we have good batting and bowling combinations and they are doing their best job. I have set a tag line for times shield (guys chodna nahi) hope we will continue to do our best on big day i.e the finals.