Oriental Trophy successfully concluded their second season on Friday 2nd April at the Kings XI Abbasiya Ground. Oriental Trophy organized by Oriental Group, Kuwait has been encouraging enthusiast cricketers to display their talent, this year 20 teams participated with league matches played over 5 weeks before the final. The final match witnessed the clash of two undefeated titans Mangalore Friends Cricketers (MFC) and Magic XI in their league matches.
MFC defeated Magic XI by 19 runs in the thrilling finale. MFC after being put into bat, scored a 121/9 in 10 overs. Sunil Sundara Poojary scored a brilliant 37 runs off 15 balls which included 5 sixes and Melwyn Dsouza scored 34 runs in 13 balls by hitting 4 huge sixes.
Magix XI started their chase in haste and lost early wickets, skipper Clinto V scored 32 runs off 11 balls and started pulling the team towards the victory. At end MFC pace bowler took his wicket at a very crucial juncture, which led to downfall of Magic XI batsmen at regular intervals. 28 runs were required from the final over and MFC bowler Wender Botheju bowled an excellent spell restricting to score only 8 runs and thus taking his team to victory.
Sunil Sundara Poojary from MFC was awarded “Man of the match in Final” & Clinto V from Magic XI as “Best Batsman”, Parvindar Kumar from MFC as “Best Bowler” of the Series & Adil Naziri from Ruzdan XI was named “Player of the series” for his brilliant all round performance during the tournament.
There were plenty of other recognition, such as Oriental Restaurant food vouchers for Man of the match of each quarter finals, Semifinals, Star performer of the week and for first Hat trick bowler.
Mr. Sathischandra Shetty, Chairman of Oriental Group in Kuwait and Mr. Shodhan Shetty, Captain of Oriental Cricketers, presented the Winners Oriental Trophy-2021 along with prize money of KWD 350 /- to winning Captain Jason Dsouza and his team. Runner up Oriental trophy along with prize money of KWD 200 was presented to Captain Clinto V and his team.
Oriental Team Manager Mr. Praveen Kumar Shetty, Oriental Cricket team mates and cricket official Mr. Nishad attended the finale. The presentation ceremony was well captured by photographer Rakshak Shetty.