Cricket’s emerging stars to hone their talent at the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals

The world’s finest college cricketers prepare to face off in a heated week of competition at the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Final in Sri Lanka, as alumni of the tournament light up the international stage. 

The six previous editions of Red Bull Campus Cricket have been a whetstone at which the likes of Niroshan Dickwella and India’s KL Rahul have sharpened their skills. Held this year from 10-16 September, the World Final will again showcase cricket’s rising stars, as they aim to make the T20 tournament a springboard for national honours.

The tournament in Sri Lanka is a culmination of eight college cricket teams’ campaigns. Sides from Sri Lanka, Australia, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, India, Pakistan, South Africa and United Arab Emirates, will feature, initially in Colombo where the group stages will be played from 10-12 September, before the action moves to Galle International Stadium for the semi-finals and final.

“There’s nothing quite like a high-intensity tournament to test the mettle of developing cricketers, and that’s exactly what the Campus Cricket World Final is,” said Brendon Kuruppu, the Tournament Director and former Sri Lanka cricketer. “You learn and improve from playing against the best. This tournament is a wonderful opportunity for players to pick each other’s brains and share their own knowledge on the game, while also showing the world what they’ve got.”

Last year’s world champions, Sri Lanka’s Business Management School, will have the opportunity to win successive titles – a feat only previously achieved by Assupol Tuks Cricket (University of Pretoria). While their familiarity with conditions, and home support, mark BMS out as an early favourite, all eight sides have earned qualification through fiercely competitive national tournaments in each of their countries. Last year’s World Final saw several last-over finishes.

Those climaxes were partly the result of the Energiser Over, which was pioneered in last year’s tournament, and will be in play again. Each batting side gets one Energiser Over per innings, where runs count double, but any wickets lost will cost five penalty runs. This can be taken at any point after the Powerplay overs, and was used in 2016 to prompt either a mid-innings surge, or as part of teams’ death-overs acceleration.

The teams competing in the 2017 World Finals:

Sri Lanka: Business Management School (BMS)

Australia: University of Sydney

Bangladesh: University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)

Zimbabwe: National University of Science & Technology (NUST)

India: Marathwada Mitra Mandal College of Commerce (MMCC College), Pune

Pakistan: Jinnah Government College Nazimabad, Karachi

South Africa: North-West University (NWU)

UAE: TBC