IES VN Sule Guruji (Dadar) will take on IES New English School (Bandra) in the final of a very compact MSSA Harris Shield U-16 cricket tournament at the Wankhede Stadium starting on Thursday.
IES VN Sule, had done the unthinkable, beating three-time defending champions Al Barkaat MMI by 147 runs in the semifinal of the tournament earlier this week.
IES New English, riding on a century by Varad Ranaware, won an extremely close semifinal against Swami Vivekanand International (Borivli), beating them by just two wickets.
Harris Shield normally has 130+ schools participating in the tournament but this season, due to limited time, the organisers have scaled it down to just 16 teams.
Due to the pandemic and the restrictions imposed by the Maharashtra government, both the teams haven’t been able to practice the whole of last year. They’ve just trained together for just little over a month.
Limited practice and the fact that most of the players are studying for their Standard 10 board exams have hindered their preparations for the tournament but both teams are raring to go.
IES VN Sule coach Gopal Koli told FPJ that while their batting has been great, it’s been their bowling that has brought them so far in this tournament. And that’s saying something considering they beat heavyweights Rizvi Springfield in their opening match.
“We’ve batted well but we’ve not allowed a single team to score more than 80 runs against us. Our bowling has been a real revelation this season,” he said.
Their off-spinner Ayush Mhatre has been a real find this season, scoring 177 against Shardashram in their final league match and then picking up 3/19 in their semifinal against Al Barkaat.
IES New English will again be banking on Ranaware to break up the bowling attack of their opponents and give them the advantage.
