Express-MCA boost for juniors

Vaneet Chhibber, executive vice-president of the Express group and MCA honorary secretaries Pravin Barve and Prof Ratnakar Shetty said the tournaments were designed to fulfil the long-feltneed to have one-dayers for youngsters as a run-up to the selection of the Mumbai Under-19 and Under-16 teams.

While four teams will vie for the Express Trophy for Under-19, six teams will compete for the Loksatta Trophy for Under-16. The Under-19 tournament kicks off with a match at the hallowed Brabourne Stadium on October 1, the Under-16 tournament will be played from October Oct 20-24.

Explaining the rationale behind the tournament, Chhibber observed: 8220;The idea of these tournaments is to help spot talented youngsters in one-day cricket 8212; a form of cricket which has become the mantra at the international level. The current tournaments at this level, however, are three-day matches from which the teams for Mumbai Under-19 and Under-16 are selected. One-day teams should be selected based on the merit of performances in one-day cricket and we are glad that the MCA readily agreed.

8220;The players in fray for the tournaments have been selected by the Mumbai Cricket Association selection committee. Theseselectors will follow the matches closely as it forms the basis of the selection of the Mumbai U-19 and U-16 teams. We hope, in a few years time, this yearly feature will establish itself as the premier talent scouting forum and will ensure that Mumbai maintains a healthy share in the national team. Apart from that, this is a part of the endeavour of Express group to contribute towards positive social development.8221;

MCA secretaries Barve and Shetty joined the former India cricketers in applauding the Express group for coming forward to organise the tournaments and expressed the hope that it would lead to lengthy partnership.

The Indian Express Trophy for under-19 will comprise four teams: Polly Umrigar XI, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi XI, Kapil Dev XI and Ravi Shastri XI.

The Loksatta Trophy for under-16 will see six teams in fray: Ajit Wadekar XI, Sachin Tendulkar XI, Subhash Gupte XI, Sandeep Patil XI, Salim Durrani XI and Ramakant Desai XI.

The teams for the under-16 championship, the selectionprocess of which is under way, will be announced shortly.

There are plenty of incentives for the young hopefuls: batsmen hitting two or more sixes in an innings will be richer by Rs 500 while a bowler delivering two or more maidens in an innings will get a similar amount. In abid to encorage running between wickets, a novel prize has been announced: Rs 1,100 for teams scoring 90 runs in singles in an innings! The Man of the Match Award is worth Rs 5,000 in the under-19 tourney and Rs 3,000 in the under-16 championship. The Man of the Match Awards will be decided by the two officiating umpires and the MCA selection committee.

The Under-19 Teams:

Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi XI: Sushant Manjrekar capt, Nilesh Gavas wk, Ashutosh Narkar, Rohan Bane, Kamran Chaudhari, Vinit Indulkar, Indrajit Khanvilkar, Sammy Salaria, Praful Mahajan, Anirudha Dichwalkar, Uday Karkera, Parag Purandare, Prakash Palande, Sameer Bhundarkar and Alap Ghag.

Ravi Shastri XI: Vijay Singh capt, Santosh Chape wk,Rahul Yadav, Prasad Manjrekar, Arjun Mistry, Bhavin Thakkar, Manish Ravre, Rohit Bhalla, Wilkin Mota, Pratamesh Athawale, Rohan Ganpule, Abhijit Tapase, Sandeep Shinde, Siddhartha Bhatkar and Shripal Sansare.

Polly Umrigar XI: Vinayak Mane capt, Abhijit Shetye wk, Rubesh Kumar, Pankaj Moraskar, Aziz Shaikh, Dinesh Salunke, Majid Ansari, Ashish Dabolkar, Omkar Khanwilkar, Sameer Gavas, Surendra Yadav, Agam Pandit, Shakti Prasad, Vaibhav Dhokre and Sanchit Pandey.

Kapil Dev XI: Samrat Chitre capt, Prashant Kamble wk, Abhishek Bhandiwadekar, Shaiban Faki, Avishkar Salvi, Gaurang Joglekar, Padmanabh Kulkarni, Amit Kadam, Manish Ambavane, Sangram Bagul, Chirag Shah, Vishwaroop Sutre, Navodeet Gugar, Abhijit Kenkar and Prasad Patil