ACA Hyderabad wins the prestigious U16 Father Vicente Ferrer Invitation tournament

Aswin CA, Hyderabad: Winners of the U16 FVF Tournament

The U16 Father Vicente Ferrer (FVF) Invitation tournament was played at the Anantapur Sports Village (ASV) from the 1st to 3rd October 2015. A total of six teams from all over South India participated in the tournament, where Aswin Cricket Academy (CA), Hyderabad were the champions after they defeated Little Hearts, Chennai by a comfortable margin of 50 runs at the ASV main ground.

Each team played two league matches and the top two teams in the table went on to play the finals whereas the teams placed third and fourth played for the 3rd place in the tournament.

After an intense group stage, the top four teams Aswin CA, Hyderabad, Little Hearts, Chennai, the hosts Anantapur Sports Academy (ASA) and Jain International Residential School (JIRS), Bangalore qualified for the knockout stage.

ASA and JIRS Bangalore played against each other for a 3rd place finish in the tournament on the B ground. ASA won the toss and chose to bat first, scoring 189 all out, with important contributions from Sai Vinay Kumar (53 runs), John Michel (24 runs) and Pavan Kumar (21 runs). Vatsal Jain was the pick of the bowlers from the opposition, picking up 4 for 21.

Anantapur Sports Academy finished third on the table in the tournament

Chasing 190 for victory, JIRS, Bangalore were all out for 178 in 47.2 overs. For JIRS, KunalNagpal was the highest scorer with 70 runs, but even his valiant effort with the bat was not enough for them to win the match. ASA’s J.Prasanth Reddy picked up a fifer, giving away just 23 runs, as a result of which ASA won the match by 11 runs and finished third in the tournament.

Due to a wet outfield on the A ground, the final of the competition was reduced to 20 overs per side. Winning the toss, Aswin CA, Hyderabad opted to bat first and put up a competitive total of 144 runs with Vignesh playing an all important knock of 84 runs and helping his team to register a respectable score.

The batsmen from Little Hearts, Chennai failed to put up a fight as they scored a mere 94 runs in their allotted 20 overs, with the loss of8 wickets. Pranav was the pick of the bowlers for Aswin CA, as he picked up 3 for 23 and helped his team register a win by a big margin.

The closing ceremony on the 3rd of October marked an end to the tournament. Present at the ceremony was RDT Sports Director, EF Xavier and MK Iqbal, Founder of AVMeiyappan Academy in Chennai. They handed out prizes to Akhil from Aswin CA, Hyderabad and Sai Vinay Krishna from ASA, for the best bowler and the best batsman of the tournament, respectively.

Aravind from Little Hearts, Chennai won the award for the best all-rounder. To finish the ceremony, MK Iqbal gave a speech in appreciation of the tournament “I praise Rural Development Trust and Anantapur Sports Academy for hosting such a wonderful event. We hope to keep this association with them as we look forward to bringing 12 teams next year and expecting the tournament to have an even bigger impact than it had this year.”