Sixteen teams battled it out in the Rangers six-a-side cricket tournament in a quest to be crowned champions.
In this year’s edition of the soft ball tournament, teams had two separate cups to play for – Champions Cup and Rangers Cup.
Teams were divided in groups of four teams each and played three group games before top 12 teams were promoted to the qualifiers and semi-final stages.
The tournament attracted local communities’ attention and about 150+ people turned up and enjoyed a beautiful sunny day of Cricket.
The food stall run by the Rangers Ladies group did an excellent job by keeping the hunger in check for the cricketers and visitors with some really delicious breakfast and lunch menu items on display.
After a series of group and terminator games, the four finalists for the two cups were: Champions Cup: Lower Earley Eagles (LEE) and Toli
Rangers Cup: Reading Knights and Reading Lions
The two Finals were played in great spirits with the sun still shining and bright light enabling perfect cricketing conditions until late in the evening.
Champions Cup
Toli won the toss and invited LEE to bat first. Just like the group and knock out games,
LEE got off to a great start posting a total of 80+ runs for Toli to chase.
Toli looked comfortable to chase down the target until the penultimate over where they lost crucial wickets and could not really recover from that.
The final over from Rahul needed Toli to score more than 20 runs and with few dot balls the win was all but secured for LEE.
Rangers Cup
This was a nail biting thriller with all three results being possible until the very last ball. Reading Knights looked on course to win but the final over from Reading Lion’s Keerthi ensured Lions victory.
At the presentation ceremony there were more winners with “Haryana Lions” getting the Spirit of Cricket Award.
By Ankush Kapoor