IndiaFirst wins on the back of Skipper Ajish’s all-round show in the Corporate T10 Shield’18

Owens Corning India Pvt Ltd. faced IndiaFirst Life this Saturday (22-Dec-2018) in both Teams’ second outing in The Corporate T10 Cricket Shield 2018-19. After beating Group favourites Hindustan Unilever Ltd. easily in their first league Match, Owens looked like a formidable unit. Playing back-to-back matches, IndiaFirst Life was upbeat as well after defeating Mahindra Insurance Brokers Ltd. in a tight finish earlier in the day.

After winning the Toss, Owens decided to field first at Dadar Parsi Colony Sporting Club, Matunga Gymkhana, Mumbai. IndiaFirst got to a quick start with a quickfire Partnership of 49 in just 3.4 overs between Babli Sharma and Skipper Ajish Abdul Rehman for the Second Wicket. A regular Opening Batsman, Ajish decided to go in at No. 3 in order to give the other openers in the Team (Pushkar Sharma & Babli) a go. Particularly severe on the quicks all round the wicket, he raced to 33 off 14 Deliveries (5 Fours & a Six) before departing with the Score at 74/1 in 6.3 overs. Till then, a total of around 125 seemed to be on the cards. But soon, Babli (28 off 22; 2 4s & 1 Six) was caught at deep mid-wicket, the longest part of the ground. Anand Pawar easily judged the skier that seemed to be lost in the orbit for quite some time. Vice Captain Ramana Meesala’s late innings cameo of 22 off 12 balls helped his team finish at 98/4 in the stipulated 10 overs. A flat square-driven six in the last over thudded into the Dadar Parsi Pavilion, providing a perfect finish to the Innings. For Owens, Ganesh Shirke (2-0-12-0) bowled a tight Spell with Sachin Dongre taking 2 Wickets.

Set to chase down the Target of 99, Owens put up a great platform with an opening partnership of 49 in just 4.3 overs. Another 50 was required in 33 Balls with all the wickets intact. Wicket-keeper Santosh Revankar (17 off 10) was nicely caught by Dharmendra Gupta at long-off after covering good amount of ground. Dharmendra also went on to run the other opener Manish Patil out for 29 with his brilliant Fielding.

With 41 to win from 4 overs, with 9 wickets in hand, Owens seemed to be favorites. In the 7th over, Sanket Teli took a wicket and gave away just 7 Runs to take the equation to 34 from 3. Ajish, after taking it deep to ensure that he could bowl 2 of the last 3 Overs, generated some brisk pace. Maintaining a tight line and length, he gave away just a Single off the first 5 Balls. Now 33 off 13 seemed almost out of range for Owens. The last ball of the over, a Yorker, was squeezed out towards Deep Mid-Wicket for what seemed like a Single.

But what followed was complete drama. Fielder Ramana running in to field the Ball, pulled a muscle. Pravin Malik covered huge ground from Long-on to pick up and throw the ball to the Bowler, who it turn threw it towards the striker’s end. The ball ricocheted off the batsman towards the third man boundary. By this time the Batsmen had already run 5. While attempting the 6th, a brilliantly direct-hit from wicket-keeper Babli ensured another Run-out.

Left Arm Spinner Wasim Sayyed restricted them to just 9 off the penultimate over while bowling from the end with the shorter boundary on the on side. 19 was required off the last over bowled by Ajish. 2 more run outs later, the equation read 13 needed off the last 2. A brilliantly struck six on the short off-side boundary by Vishal Jitekar ensured that this match too went down till the last ball, with 7 more to win. Another quick yorker from Ajish ensured that Vishal could only muster a single off the last ball, finishing unbeaten on 20 off 12 (2 Fours, 1 Six). It was a brave effort from him though. Thus, IndiaFirst Life Insurance won by 5 runs by restricting Owens to 93/6.

It was again an exceptional performance in the field for IndiaFirst, which also saw as many as 4 run-outs. Other notable contributors were Sandeep Shetty, Pushkar Sharma, Waseem Sayyed and Sanket Teli. Sanket was the pick of the bowlers too, with bowling figures of 2-0-14-2.

Ajish was named Man of the Match for his all-round performace. He commended Positiveleap for the way they were professionally managing such a fast-paced Tournament, keeping up the enthusiasm and excitement throughout. A sizeable Team of Organizers were present at the Ground managing each aspect.

IndiaFirst Life now leads the Table with 2 wins from 2 matches, with their last match slotted against Hindustan Unilever Ltd.

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