Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag started the inaugural edition of St. Moritz Ice Cricket 2018 with phenomenal innings of 62 off just 31 deliveries. Leading the Badrutt’s Palace Diamonds Team Sehwag registered the first ever half-century on ice. In his dazzling innings, the Sultan of Multan smashed 4 fours and five sixes.

Viru started off his innings in his typical Sehwag way as he played a cut shot to Shoaib Akhtar’s very first ball to score a boundary and went on to make 62. It was his performance with the bat that propelled Team diamond to a respectable total of 166/9 in 20 overs. Andrew Symonds also played decent innings of 40 and balanced the middle order. However, Sehwag and Symonds’ knock wasn’t enough to take their team over the line.

Also read: Details of Cricket on ice

Talking about his knock Sehwag tweeted a photo and expressed that despite the fact that he has left playing cricket, but he didn’t forget to make an apt use of the willow. He tweeted, “Hathiyar chhode hain, chalana nahi bhoole hain 🙂 Great fun on the ice.” His efforts were also applauded by former India skipper Sourav Ganguly who replied to the tweet, ”kya baat kaha Viru…”

Hathiyar chhode hain ,chalana nahi bhoole hain 🙂 Great fun on the ice. pic.twitter.com/V1bjFATGnI

— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) February 8, 2018

@virendersehwag .. kya baat kaha Viru…

— Sourav Ganguly (@SGanguly99) February 8, 2018

Chasing the decent target of 167, the Royals started their innings pretty dominantly. Despite losing wickets at regular intervals they kept the required run rate in check. However, Owais Shah’s unbeaten knock of 74 took the Shahid Afridi led Royals over the line with six wickets in hand and 28 balls to spare.

Squads:

Badrutt’s Palace Diamonds: Virender Sehwag (c), Mohammad Kaif, Lasith Malinga, Michael Hussey, Mahela Jayawardene, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Tillakaratne, Andrew Symonds, Joginder Sharma, Ramesh Powar, Rohan Jain

Team Royals: Jacques Kallis (c), Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Nathan McCullum, Daniel Vettori, Grant Elliott, Monty Panesar, Graeme Smith, Owais Shah, Abdul Razzaq, Jacques Kallis, Matt Prior, Aidan Andrews