London, July 19 (IANS): Fans had a gala time watching corporate bigwigs playing and interacting with some of the legends of the game during the Corporate Six-A-Side Cricket organized at the Blackheath Sports Club here on Thursday. The unique event, which was promoted as an Ultimate Playing Experience with the Legends of the Game, had Cricket UK and Chris Gayle Foundation as supporting platforms.
With matches interspersed with fun activities, fans had a fun-filled day in the event which was followed by a gala dinner.
Each of the corporate sides -- Mobile 365, Visionnaire, SBI UK, IT Tree, HSBC, and MCCL All Stars -- were assigned professional cricketers. Like Mobile 365 had West Indies legend Chris Gayle, IT Tree had former India star, Suresh Raina, SBI UK had off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, Herschelle Gibbs for Visionnaire, HSBC had Saj Mahmood while MCCL All Stars, which comprised players from MCCL, J.P Morgan, KPMG and CommerzBank, had former England star Alex Tudor appearing for them.
Each team consisted of six players each -- from a squad maximum of ten, including the Professional Cricketers. Teams were also allowed to bring along a maximum of one professional/ex-professional for the day over and above the player supplied by Prime Sports & Media, organisers of the event.
Each match consisted of one innings per team and could stretch to a maximum of five, six-ball overs. The final was of six overs each.
Two batsmen had to be at the wicket at all times during an innings. In the event of a team losing five wickets within the allotted overs, the last man was allowed to bat, with the fifth man out remaining at the wicket as a runner. In the event of the runner being run out, the last remaining batsman was deemed to be out.