Pushkar’s Quick 66* in 27 Balls helps IndiaFirst reach the Semis of the Corporate T10 Cricket Shield’19

IndiaFirst Life Insurance faced Hindustan Unilever Ltd. in their 3rd League Match of The Corporate T10 Cricket Shield 2018-19 on 05-Jan-2019.

IndiaFirst won the Toss and elected to Bat first at the Dadar Parsee Colony Gymkhana Cricket Ground, Matunga, Mumbai. Openers Babli Sharma (23 in 14 Balls; two 4s & one 6) & Pushkar Sharma got their Team to a quickfire start. No. 3 Kunal Bambardekar, promoted up the order, came in and started blasting away. One huge six off pacer Varun Sabharwal towards the Covers, who had castled Babli earlier, went out of the ground off the longest part of the field. He eventually remained unbeaten on 41 scored off just 21 Balls that comprised of 4 Fours & 3 Sixes. Pushkar at the other end was blazing away and carried his Bat through the Innings scoring 66* in just 27 Balls. The knock consisted of 3 Fours and 6 nicely times Sixes.
IndiaFirst ended up scoring a mammoth 137/1 in 10 Overs.

During the Chase, Opener Mario Fernandes (16 in 6 Balls) seemed in murderous mood after hitting 2 Sixes and a Four off the first 5 Balls that he faced from Pace Bowler Dharmendra Gupta. It was a sweet revenge when the Bowler had him, while going for the kill off the last ball of the over, brilliantly caught by Pushkar who covered huge ground running from the Deep Long Off fence. The other Opener Rajesh Jadhav seemed in no different mood either, having his Team at 51/1 after 3.5 Overs after carting Pushkar for 21 in the 4th Over. The Bowler had only conceded 2 in his first Over.

Pacer Sanket Teli then came up with a superb spell of 2-0-5-1 that effectively sealed the fate of the Match, a period where he completely neutralised Rajesh, beating him completely on several occasions. The nail in the coffin was when Skipper Ajish Abdul Rehman (1-0-1-1) eventually got Rajesh (43 in 25 Balls; 4 Sixes) Caught Behind with his sheer pace. IndiaFirst Won the match by 53 Runs. Pushkar was named Man of the Match for his brilliant Innings.

With this, IndiaFirst Life Insurance tops the Pool that consisted of strong Teams (the other two being Mahindra Insurance Brokers Ltd. & Owens Corning India Pvt Ltd.) with all 3 Wins. They would be playing the Semis once the other League Matches are over.

Keep watching this space for more updates.