Team Affiliates, fresh off a win against the Team Entrepreneurs, was in full flow against the Team Rankers on Tuesday. Playing in their second match of the tournament, they looked determined to secure a place in the semifinals by defeating the Rankers. Affiliates scored 148 runs which proved too much for the Rankers as they were dismissed at a meagre total of just 74 runs.
Here are the key moments of the match:
Team Affiliates batted first in the game but unfortunately did not get the desired start as Jai Sharma was dismissed for a duck by the Rankers. They looked in a bit of trouble before Gaurab Borah and the skipper Antas Ahuja made sure that the Affiliates finished on a high during their turn at the bat.
Gaurab Borah contributed a vital 34 runs to the total while the captain Antas Ahuja smashed 38 runs. Antas took the batting powerplay in the last over of the inning and proved why he was appointed as the team’s captain. He led from the front and smashed 23 runs in the last over to propel the score of Team Affiliates to 148 runs. Piyush Sharma, who did a phenomenal job with the ball, also contributed a healthy 16 runs.
In reply, Team Rankers could not make the most of the powerplay as Ronit Nahata, and Rachit Jain bowled exceptionally well to pile pressure on their batters. Ronit Nahata went on to be a key factor in the victory as he dismissed the Rankers’ most dependable batter Vishal and took a great catch that altered the course of the match.
Antas Ahuja introduced Saksham Sethi in the third over, who bowled quite well before he had to be taken out due to an injury which he suffered on the fourth ball of his over. Priyanshu Jain was brought in as the substitute for Saksham. He displayed great athleticism throughout the match and was one of the star fielders for the team, along with Ronit Nahata in the match.
Piyush Sharma, who was crowned the ‘Player of the Match’ award, took three wickets in the 11th over of the Rankers inning to completely dismantle their pursual. What made the situation grimmer for the Rankers was that Piyush had sent back three batters to the pavilion during the over in which they had used the batting powerplay. Following that, Vaibhav Goel also went on to register three wickets in a single over. He achieved the feat in the 13th over of the inning. At last, Mayank Goel was the one to wrap the Rankers’ chase on a paltry 74.
With this huge victory of 74 runs, Team Affiliates have ensured their qualification in the semi-final of the iFest 2022. Their next match is going to be against the Marketers on 28th September 2022 from 12 PM onwards at CK Playstation, Noida.
Team Affiliates is sponsored by VCommission, V3Cars and Proxgy in the iFest 2022.
