By Akshay Puri, Grade 10 IG D

My cricket team, GIIS SMART Campus, emerged victorious in the finals of the U-16 Twenty20 Cricket tournament, held from January to February 2019, at GIIS East Coast campus. The final match was played between Raffles Institution team and GIIS SMART Campus team on 2nd February.

This was the 4th edition of the GIIS Chandu Borde U-16 Twenty20 Cricket tournament where six teams participated in the game - GIIS SMART Campus, Raffles Institution (RI), UWC Dover, KRS (Knight Rider Sports) Academy, Overseas Family School (OFS) and Singapore Cricket Club (SCC). The six teams were divided into two groups with group A consisting of GIIS SMART Campus, RI and SCC and group B consisting of UWC Dover, KRS and OFS.

GIIS SMART Campus was ranked first in group A after winning 2 matches out of 2, followed by RI team. KRS team topped group B followed by UWC Dover. The top 2 teams in each group qualified to play for the semi-finals. In the semi-finals held on February 1st, GIIS SMART Campus played against UWC Dover and RI played against KRS. GIIS SMART  Campus and RI emerged winners and subsequently qualified to play for the finals. UWC Dover got the third place beating team KRS.

The Finals played between GIIS SMART Campus and RI, proved to be a nail-biting and thrilling match as GIIS SMART Campus beat RI by a narrow margin of 10 runs. RI captain Raoul Sharma was awarded the man of the match for his spectacular overall performance in the finals. UWC Dover's Sidharth Punshi received the Player of the tournament award for his consistent performances. RI's Premil Roshan received the Best Batsman award as well as the Maximum Sixes award after scoring 187 runs and hitting 16 sixes in 4 matches. I received the Best Bowler trophy after taking 6 wickets in the tournament. Trinabh Sahni's magnificent boundary catch against KRS was adjudged as the Best Catch of the tournament.

The GIIS Sports Faculty worked extremely hard to make this tournament a big success and it was a memorable match for our team members.