SINGAPORE – Any encounter between school cricket rivals Raffles Institution (RI) and Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) is always a fiery one, but the Rafflesians had extra motivation to succeed when both sides faced off in the B Division final on Tuesday.
Runners-up in 2022, RI were beaten by ACS (I) by six runs in the preliminary match earlier in the National School Games season. While that did not stop them from making the final two, they were determined to bounce back from that defeat and claim their first B Division title since 2017.
And they did just that on Tuesday. RI, who won the coin toss and elected to bat first, scored 104 in 18.2 overs.
Despite Pranit Bhat’s 31 runs, ACS (I) hit only 98 in 19.5 overs to lose by six runs.
RI captain Nikhil Arora, his team’s top scorer with 25 runs, said: “I’m honestly speechless because I’ve been wanting it since I joined Raffles Institution. So I’m feeling very emotional right now. ACS(I) and RI have always been rivals for the finals.
“It’s been a while since we’ve won, and it feels good to bring it home after so many years.”
The 15-year-old added that the narrow loss to ACS (I) in the earlier round was “a great motivation for us”, adding that “we knew we had the potential to beat them, and we did it today”.
The match between the big rivals was a nail-biting one for supporters, who had turned out at the Singapore Cricket Club’s Dempsey Field to catch their teams in action.
With ACS (I) needing to score 11 runs in the 20th over to beat RI, they managed only five before running out of wickets.
As their last batsman was run out (leaving Aryan Agarwal at 9 not out) to confirm RI’s victory, the rest of the team charged down the pitch to celebrate with their jubilant supporters as they sang the school song and chanted cheers.
B Division debutant Vinay Sainath, 16, who took two wickets, said: “It feels good to have a good impact on my team... I thought we had a good chance of winning, but we struggled a bit at the beginning. But I believed in my team all the way.
“I also really have to thank the audience and supporters, it was really great and a good motivation for us.”
RI’s victory also ended ACS (I)’s stranglehold on the cricket title, which the latter have won since 2018 – in 2016, 2019 and 2022 they also swept all three titles in the A, B and C divisions.
ACS(I) captain Aditya Bhatnagar, 15, who also took two wickets, said: “When you’ve come so far, nobody likes being second place. It doesn’t feel good to lose especially when we have such a long history of winning.
“But the other team worked as hard and wanted the win as much. Sometimes it’s just not our day.”
