Ajish’s 98 & Wasim’s 5-for help IndiaFirst Life Insurance win convincingly in the Jolly Friends T20 Tournament 2018

Ajish’s 98 & Wasim’s 5-for help IndiaFirst Life Insurance win convincingly against Tata in the Jolly Friends T20 Tournament 2018
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Skipper & Opening Batsman Ajish Abdul Rehman’s majestic 98 off 60 Balls and Left Arm Spinner Waseem Sayyed’s mesmerising Spell of 4-3-4-5 combined to provide IndiaFirst Life Insurance its second victory in as many Matches in the widely known Jolly Friends Sports Club T20 Cricket Tournament 2018 at Dadar Parsi Zoroastrian (DPZ) Pitch, Matunga Gymkhana on the 24th of November. The Match was against Tata International. 4 Teams each in the 4 Pools would be eyeing to top the Group in order to qualify for the Semi-finals.

Winning the Toss and electing to Bat on what looked like an underprepared Pitch, Captain Ajish started aggressively to put on 57 Runs in the first 6 Overs in an Opening partnership of 66 in 8.2 Overs with his deputy Ramana Meesala (25 off 23 Balls). But a tight Bowling Spell from Left Arm Slow Bowler Swapnil (4-0-20-2) and Medium Pacer Ramdas (4-0-23-2) saw a slight collapse of the Middle Order. Especially, the innocuous looking Bowling of Swapnil showed how an immaculate line & length combined with subtle movement in the air and off the Pitch could trouble the best of Batsmen.

Ajish kept going at the other end though, when during the period of 9.2 Overs 92 Runs were scored, with the other four Batsmen adding 18 Runs off 26 Balls. Rupen Chaurasiya gave a good stand with some quick running between the Wickets. Ajish’s Sixes just got getting bigger, with the first one, a short-arm Pull off Medium Pacer Dhaval barely touching the shortest Square Leg Boundary, the next, a slog Sweep against Off-spinner Vishal going out of the ground, and the last one, a monstrous hit off Medium Pacer Praveen K crashing into the 3rd Floor window of the building outside the Ground, still on its way up towards the Mid-wicket Boundary. Eventually, he got out caught at the Third Man Boundary, a mere 2 Runs short of a well-deserving Century, to a chest-high Full-toss that he was playing way ahead of the Batting crease. Both Umpires had a good Match for most part. Kunal Bambardekar played a little cameo at the end of the Innings (14 off 8; 3 4s) to finish IndiaFirst’s Innings at 177/6 in 20 Overs, that on the Pitch seemed to be a good total.
Left-arm Medium Pacer Pushkar Sharma started off proceedings with an exceptional spell of Swing and Seam Bowling with Figures of 3-0-8-0. Medium Pacer Mohsin Jethva proved to be an able ally (3-0-15-1) getting the first breakthrough and then Running Out the other Opener with Wicket-keeper Babli Sharma doing the rest with lightning speed. Mohsin also took a couple of good Catches, one of them after bouncing off Ajish’s hands with three people converging on a high Catch.

Great friends off the Field, Pushkar’s camaraderie with Babli showed on the Ground as well, with the latter standing up to the Wicket and making some great collects off some intelligent Bowling. Later in the Innings, he also stood up to an even quicker Praveen Malik with superb reflexes. That he gave away just 1 Bye in the whole Innings, and combined with Wasim to take one Catch & 2 Stumpings just summed up his performance.

In fact, the introduction of Waseem in the 8th Over really started the collapse for Tata, as he bowled with beautiful Flight & trajectory getting huge turn off the Pitch. The 5 Wicket haul for just 4 Runs, with 3 Maidens in 4 Overs was an enjoyable sight.

Pacer Praveen with his unique long Run-up during which he seems to detail off the track (good enough to be Bowling on the adjacent Pitch), before getting back on line, generated a few from giggles from the Players, Umpires and the few spectators. A tight Spell of 2-1-4-1 followed that though. Skipper Suyog tried to give some respectability to the Score with 18 off 12 Balls with 3 Fours before Sanket Teli Bowled the last Batsman to finish Tata’s Innings for 58 in 15.5 Overs, this IndiaFirst winning the Match by a huge margin of 119 Runs.

Wasim got the Man of the Match Award for his dream spell. In a Match that saw 108 Runs from 155 Balls (combined Strike Rate of 69.7; 12 4s) by the other 18 Batsmen, Ajish alone scored 98 in 60 Balls (Strike Rate: 163.3; 12 4s & 3 6s).

IndiaFirst Life Insurance was an unknown entity in the Cricketing arena a year back till Ajish & Ramana took up the responsibility with support shown by the Senior Management at IndiaFirst Life. Especially, their Chief People’s Officer Praveen Menon has been a keen proponent of the idea. Slowly but surely, the Team’s making great strides in the right direction towards repaying the faith shown by the Organisation, with having Employees like Pushkar Sharma, Babli Sharma & Aaraf Shaikh and Akhtar Shaikh who have also been well known talents in the Cricketing circuits in their ranks.