TCS Start the Season with a Fantastic win
The cricket season is about to start and teams are warming up before the actual corporate games. Game On recently organized an indoor cricket tournament and The TCS team emerged as winners. “It’s a really nice tournament. The organization was extremely good and rules & regulations were quite easy to understand. We have been participating in this tournament for past 2 years. We have won it now for two consecutive years. It is always good if you start your season with such kind of victory. It gives a moral boost and every player gets charged up,” said Kiran who is TCS Mumbai’s sports manager.
Having taken this position of sports manager, Kiran and his team have achieved many feats on cricket field. “I took over in 1999-2000 since then we have participated in various tournaments like Times Shield, Inter TATA corporate tournaments, various T20 tournaments and 7-a side games” said Kiran. Their players were outstanding in recently concluded indoor tournament. “Sachin Sakpal bowled really well and he was very economical especially during powerplays. Talking about batting, Ravi was our star batsman. He remained not out throughout the tournament. Though it was a tennis ball tournament, same bunch of players play in leather ball tournament as well. Normally we have a squad of 16 to 18 players and there is proper selection process that takes place to decide the squad. Depending on performance we pick the final 11,” said Kiran.
They have been the runners up of Times shield F division. And in 2012 they won Inter TATA corporate tournament due to which they were promoted to group A from group B. They have also won a 7 a side tournament organized by Austin airlines and many more T20 tournaments they have won. “Due to our work schedule practicing and playing in tournaments is a challenging task. Still for the passion of the game everyone adjust their timings. There are people who practice after their work hours get finish, some guys play matches and after that go to office. They adjust their shifts accordingly. Apart from that there is regular practice on weekends when usually there is a holiday,” said Kiran.
“We don’t have the same squad since beginning. There are some new players who join us through selection process. So the team is different every year. It’s always nice to interact with new players and making them part of our team. That helps as a team building activity for employees as well. After working for 5 days a week, 2 days of cricket is certainly a refreshing activity for everyone”
Kiran, who is a bowling all rounder tells a success mantra of his team. “We have a perfect combination of batsman, bowlers and all rounders. Our captain Ameya Wanjare is an excellent leader and his glove work behind the stumps has been exceptionally well. Then our vice captain Umar who is a left arm bowler is also doing pretty well. Pritam Singh has also been outstanding with the ball. Talking about batting, Pradeep Shergey scored 4 half centuries in last season. He joined us a year ago and he is going well. Also Prasad Madnak was nominated as best batsman when we were runners up in Times shield F division. There are so many names to take. Many of them have performed for us over the years.”
According to Kiran Root SNA team is one the toughest to beat. “We played them about 2 years ago. Now they are in D division of Times shield and they participate in higher level tournaments now. Also InTelenet is another good team. Now they play in upper division of Times Shield. In our division I think Capgemini, HP and Sony Entertainment are good teams,” said Kiran.
Kiran told about one of his memorable experience,” about 5-6 years ago we were playing final of polycom match at D.Y Patil college ground. We were batting first and the score was 60 for 5, I and Ameya Wanjare were at crease. We took the score to 120 odd runs in 20 overs. The opponent was ICICI. We kept the screws tight and on last ball they needed 2 runs to win. But they could manage only a single and based on run rate we won that match and the tournament as well.” This season TCS are looking for the title that they missed out few years back- The F division championship of Times shield. As preparations are on high it will be interesting to see if they can add this to their trophy cabinet this season.