Historic win for SVIS as they lift the prestigious Giles Shield Title

Entering this game, no doubt SVIS have a great legacy of cricket and they are a powerful team but when you talk about Giles and Harris Shield, teams like Rizvi, Al-Barkaat have all been uncontested with numerous titles to their name.

Hence an exciting competition was bound to happen, the odds were favoring at Al-barkaat looking at their past records and how strong the side is while in no case you can under estimate the promising XI of SVIS boys who time and again come up with spectacular performances.

Even though it was an U14 Competetion, this 3 day Test match turned out to be as exciting as any senior level test match would be. A match which witnessed fair share of ups and downs, a match which had both the teams dominating at one stage and no one could makeout a probable winner till the very last day.

Al-Barkaat after being put to bat first at the iconic Brabourne Stadium were all out for 167 runs in 58.1 overs. With a shaky start , it was their no.3 batsman Aryan Badhane scoring 71 off 120 balls while Shourya Desai scoring an unbeaten 29* down the order. SVIS bowlers were quite spot on with all rounder Aayush Vaity and Pranay Kapadia bagging 3 wkts a piece.

SVIS in reply were struggling with scoreboard reading 5/56, 6/65 and 7/93 at one stage. However make no mistake, the fire was still burning and this is one match which SVIS will remember for years to come.  SVIS boys Aaayush Vaity and Soham Gondkar dodged 359 deliveries together surviving tough sessions as well as putting their team out of trouble with a defendable 1st innings total. Aayush who came at no.7 showed excellent composure scoring 95* facing 214 deliveries. It was not the natural game for Aayush as he himself confessed but the situation of the game demanded him to bat with a cool head. Soham Gondkar who came at no.9 was equally supportive as he batted for 145 deliveries scoring 27 runs. Getting a chance to bat only for the 2^nd time in the tournament, Aayush pumped him up time and again to keep the hopes alive reaching a 1^st innings total of 196 in 107.3 overs. Aryan Kumar from Al-Barkaat was fantastic with the ball coming up with a 5 wkt haul.

Al-Barkaat in the 2^nd innings declared at 186/1 with Aryan Badhane (74) and Yaseen Shaikh (76*) scoring solid half centuries. With 177 to chase in the 2^nd innings, SVIS were 91/2 in 36 overs before the end of the game’s play at Day 3 where they were declared winners on the basis of 1^st innings lead. With this, the 15 years of wait for SVIS gets over as the last time they won this prestigious title was in 2004-2005.

Aayush Vaity was certainly the man of the finals while Al-Barkaat’s Yaseen Shaikh with 269 runs at an average of 69.25 was adjudged the “Best Batsman”. Off Spinner Rudra Tank of SVIS with 28 wickets was declared the “Best Bowler”

While talking to Cricketgraph, SVIS School founder and Director Mr.Yogesh Patel said that “I am extremely delighted and on cloud nine as this win has come at a great time.

We are in Silver Jubilee year and school is about to complete 25 Glorious years of excellence in Education. SVIS has turned into a sort of an ever flowing faucet that provides an unceasing stream of promising cricketers for India. It was a long wait of 14 years to win the Giles Shield and I am proud of the boys. With their dedication and brilliant team effort along with the coaches, they made this possible.

SVIS has produced great cricketers like Rohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur & Siddhesh Lad who have made the Country and School proud and have put the School on the International map. We have aspiring cricketers coming from different parts of the world to get enrolled in the school. I am proud of the team and I hope SVIS keeps on the tradition of producing such great Cricketers”.