This season of the GMIS JCA league kicked off this weekend with 16 teams across two divisions battling it out for league honors. The season will run until August 2019 with games being played across 35 overs and T20 formats across three grounds.

Last season title holders WISCI Wanderers kicked off the season with a 35-overs game against the Metro Indians, which they won comfortably on the back of a 3D performance led by David Holme, Desandri Saputra and Deepak Singh. The Metro Indians elected to bat first after winning the toss and straightaway were up against the formidable WISCI bowling attack that had been strengthened with the inclusion of Desandri and Maxi Koda.

While David Holme was still trying to sort out his bowling radar, Desandri struck with the crucial wicket of the Metro skipper Prabhukaliraj. A restrained Kirubasankar was solid at one end, but the WISCI pacers were poking holes at the other end with wickets at regular intervals. Deepak Singh opened up the middle order with 3 wickets and Desandri returned to knock out the tail with 3 wickets in 4 balls. But a solid 53 from Kirubasankar and a huge number of extras ensured that the Metro bowlers had something to bowl to.

Kirubasankar returned to shine with the ball as well as he knocked out the WISCI top order in quick time to have them in trouble at 26 for 3. Two more wickets fell quickly and Metro was definitely back in the game with half of the WISCI side cooling it in the pavilion for just 55 runs. WISCI’s success over the years has been built on resilience and that was on display as well with Vinayak Sasitharan holding one end up while David Holme took advantage of his long reach. The two put on a 65 run unbeaten stand to take their team home with 5 wickets in hand.

In the sole Division 2 game of the weekend, Menara CC comfortably beat Ceylon CC in a high scoring game. Cricket resumed after a year’s break at the GMIS cricket ground and its reputation of being a high scoring venue was visible on Sunday as well. Menara were off to a flier after electing to bat first, thanks to the scything blade of Ishaq Khan and aided by a profligate Shubham Patni.

Even though Menara kept losing wickets, they did not take their leg off the accelerator and were speeding along until the introduction of the slower bowlers. The wily Dihan Silva struck with 3 wickets to slow things down, but Menara did well to finish at 167 in their 20 overs.

Harish Tiwari was brilliant in his opening spell and Ceylon lost its openers cheaply. Faheem Butt got rid of the dangerous Dihan, but Mufasil and Rajeev Kumar pulled things back for Ceylon with some lusty hitting. Sahayanathan struck with 3 quick wickets to derail the Ceylon chase as they ended up short by 22 runs.

Jaguar CC celebrated its elevation to Division 1 with a good win over WPP India XI in a high scoring T20 game. Dwaraknath Naidu took a fancy for Waqar Ali and his 7 boundaries helped WPP get off to a rapid start.

Sajid Ali pulled things back for Jaguar CC with a triple strike, but Pallav Malhotra and the debutant, Ramil Bansal, continued the assault to help WPP post a huge 184-run target, which the Jaguars had to chase in just 18 overs as they were docked two overs for poor over rate.

Nitin Sharma got Jaguar CC off to a flyer, but Govind Sodani slowed things down with two quick wickets. Harry Sidhu and Saulat Abbas then took on the gauntlet as they peppered the GMIS ground with 16 boundaries to take Jaguar home with two balls to spare.

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