Orient Group and Allied Bank: A Cricket Match for the Books

Pakistanis and Cricket: Name a better combination?

We bet you can’t! There is no single season for cricket in Pakistan. The sport is loved by all people, no matter what their age. The history of cricket in the region predates even the creation of the country and recently, with PSL, international cricket is slowly making a come-back as well.

For a country full of cricket-fanatics, the best utilization of time is scheduling a cricket match. To celebrate that very spirit, Pepsi has organized a corporate cricket league for 14 teams from all across Pakistan!

The teams span across various sectors and organizations, Orient Group being one of them. The first match of the league was held in Model Town, Lahore on the 15^th on November between Orient Group and the defending champions, Allied Bank.

The match started early in the morning and the weather added to the zeal n’ zest of the two teams! Allied Bank won the toss and decided to ball first. For the next twenty overs, Orient took over the cricket ground and successfully scored 239 runs in 20 overs, the highest ever total for any team in the league’s history!

The highest scorer was Kamran Rafi from BlueEast who managed to score a century and added 113 scored to the innings. Another notable performance was by Haji Adnan, who scored 63 runs and aided the team greatly towards the final 239 runs.

When it came to the second innings, the weather took a turn for the worse and it started to rain mid-innings. Due to the weather conditions, a decision was taken based on the scores of both the teams by the first six overs since the Allied Bank were only able to play and score for the first six overs of the second innings.

Former Director Marketing Orient and BlueEast’s CEO, Abdul Rehman Talat, stepped into the ground as the team’s all-rounder, supporting the win throughout!

Due to the unmatchable spirit and amazing play of the team, Orient Group won the match by 6 scores! They had made 59 scores in 6 overs compared to the Allied Bank’s team who had only been able to score 53 runs!

The match was the first breakthrough towards Orient’s mission to being the champions of the league!