Value Chasers of Pune lift the Cafemutual IFA League trophy

64 cricket-loving IFAs had a blast at the mutual fund industry’s most exciting cricket tournament for IFAs called Cafemutual IFA League (CIL). These players along with their supporters cheered, danced, networked and encouraged each other at the first edition of CIL where eight teams fought each other in ‘6-overs a side’ matches. Among the 8 teams were 2 from Pune and one from Nashik and there were players from other cities too.

Kick off match: The tournament started with a winning performance of Beta Blasters against Alpha Generators. Beta Blasters won the toss and elected to field in anticipation of restricting Alpha Generator’s batsmen. Spandan Tolia and BO Dammani from Alpha Generators gave a good start to the team. In addition, the Beta Blasters gave away 10 extra runs. As a result, Alpha Generators piled up 45 runs in 6 overs. Later, the spectacular innings of Beta Blasters batsmen - Vinayak Sapre, Dilip Shenoy, Ronak Hindocha and Vijay Choudhary ensured easy win for their team. Captain of Beta Blasters Vinayak Sapre became the man of the match for his all-round performance.

Match 2: In the second match, Asset Allocators defeated SIPers by 23 runs. Asset Allocators batted first and piled up a whopping 61 runs. Deepak Agrawal and Akram Shaikh batted well. In return, SIPers batting line up crumbled quickly and they scored just 38 runs in 6 overs. Akram became the man of the match.

Match 3: Value Chasers played against Growth Orienteers. After winning the toss, Value Chasers opted to field first. As anticipated by Value Chasers, they managed to restrict Growth Orienteers batsmen at just 29 runs. Chetan Mutha and Karanskar bowled a good spell and took 2 wickets and 1 wicket respectively. While chasing, Value Chasers scored 30 runs in the 4th over to win the match without losing any wickets. Chetan Mutha became the Man of the Match.

Match 4: In the last knockout match of this tournament, The Outperformers defeated The Diversifiers by 8 wickets. The Outperformers won the toss and elected to field. The Diversifiers had scored only 39 runs. The Outperformers required just 4 overs to reach their target. Hiten Shah scored a spectacular 19 runs by hitting 2 fours and a six. However, Harish Naggana was given Man of the Match award for his all-round performance.

Semi Final Match: In an interesting semifinal match, Value Chasers defeated Beta Blasters by just 3 runs. Value Chasers batted first and piled up a massive score of 55 runs. Chetan Mutha and Jayant scored a spectacular 20 runs and 15 runs respectively. In reply, Captain of Beta Blasters Vinayak Sapre took a little time on crease to settle to ensure their easy win. However, he misinterpreted Karanskar’s googly and lost his wicket. This was the turning point of the match. After Vinayak’s departure, Beta Blasters batting line up crumbled quickly and they managed to score 52 runs. Jayant Yewale became man of the match for his 15 runs in just 5 balls. He hit three consecutive fours and took a crucial wicket of Dilip Shenoy.

The second semifinal was truly a nail biting match. Asset Allocators played against The Outperformers. After winning the toss, Asset Allocators Captain Imran Gilani decided to bat. Things worked as anticipated for the Asset Allocators and they set a massive target of 57 runs. Ankit Gandhi and Nitin Panchal gave a wonderful start to the team. While chasing, The Outperformers too got off to a good start. Both Aditya Patankar and Harish Naganna batted well and it seemed they were cruising to a victory. However, the final over of Nitin Panchal and spectacular fielding of Akram Shaikh changed the entire game for The Outperformers as they snatched victory. Nitin, who was the man of match sent two set batsmen of the Outperformers to pavilion and helped his team register a 1 run win.

Grand Finale: Asset Allocators won the toss and elected to bat first. However, the team did not had a good start in the initial overs. Later on, Akram Shaikh, Ankit Gandhi, Nitin Panchal and Imran Gilani converted one runs into two runs by showcasing good running between the wickets. The team somehow managed to add 50 runs to the score board. However, Value Chasers, as name suggests, chased the target very easily due to spectacular performance of Jayant Yewale. Jayant scored 30 runs and became man of the match.

Star performers of CIL

This cricket tournament was supported by L&T Mutual Fund. Sarang Sports was the event manager for this cricket tournament.