2nd Coca-Cola Cricket Cup Under-16 Cricket Tournament, begin February 19

Ravindra Zende, Mumbai.

Defending champion Rizvi Springfield (Bandra), currently on a great run, along with last year’s runner-up, Anjuman-I-Islam English lead 28 of the top cricket playing schools from Mumbai and thane that will feature in the Mumbai leg of the 2nd Coca-Cola Cricket Cup Under-16 Cricket Tournament, which will begin in various grounds around the city from February 19, 2013.

This was announced by Dilip Jayram, CEO, Procam International, the promoters of the event, at a press conference on Monday in the presence of Prof. Ratnakar Shetty, Samir Pathak of Coca-Cola and P N Sankaran, Director Operations, Procam International. The event is being conducted in association with MSSA, which was represented by H S Bhor.

The teams (24 from Mumbai and 4 from Thane) will be vying for the winner’s purse of Rs 50,000 and the right to represent the city at the Inter-State Challenge.

The Coca-Cola Cricket Cup is an Inter-school grass root level cricket initiative to discover budding cricketing talent in the country. The program is open to all young school cricketers in the age group of 12-16 years. This year the tournament will be played across 10 states in close to 70 districts, involving more than 11,000 young players from more than 780 schools across the country.

Speaking about the initiative, Prof Ratnakar Shetty said, “Development of cricket at the grass root level is very important and we are thankful to Procam International for promoting this event. We are extremely grateful to Coca-Cola for sponsoring this National Inter-schools Cricket Cup and are looking forward to have a great event this year too.”

PN Sankaran, Director Operations, Procam International, said “We are delighted to have Coca-Cola India as our partners for the 2nd season of the Coca-Cola U-16 Cricket Cup. Coca-Cola’s support for sporting events is well documented and this partnership will enable us to encourage young cricketing talent in the country and serve as an ideal platform to promote grassroots cricket, identify promising talent and groom the country’s next generation of International cricketers. With India’s vast population and geographical spread, it is not easy for talented players to find the right platform and emerge into the spotlight. The Coca-Cola U-16 Cricket Cup aspires to be that platform for every deserving cricketer so that great talent never goes unrecognized”.

The Mumbai leg of the Coca-Cola Cricket Cup will involve participation from the top 24under-16 School teams who have emerged from the Giles and Harris Shield tournaments conducted by the Mumbai Schools Sports Association and will be joined by four teams from Thane. The tournament will be played on a knock-out format beginning from 19th February, with the finals scheduled to take place on the 27th February, 2013

More About the Coca-Cola U-16 Cricket Cup

The Coca-Cola Intra-State Challenge is played in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (all 13 districts), Punjab (six major districts and 14 minor districts), Baroda,TamilNadu (Chennai city and 6 districts), West Bengal (Kolkata& 18 districts), Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow and Kanpur), and Madhya Pradesh (Indore, Gwalior, Sagar&Rewa). The format of the Coca-Cola Cricket Cup has been structured to begin with the Intra-State Challenge, which will be open to all schools in the respective cities and districts. The centers that have more than one city or district will play their own inter-district before one winner emerges from each state. The winners from the ten states will feature in the Inter-State Challenge. The National winners will take home Rs.1 lakh, while the Runner Up team will be richer by Rs.70,000.