Tri-nation Asian college cricket meet mooted

An Asian tri-nation college cricket series for teams from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, was announced by the energy drink manufacturer Red Bull and India batsman Gautam Gambhir in Mumbai on Monday.

The Indian leg of the championship will features top colleges from Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Chandigarh locking horns during the months of March and April.

Four college teams from each city will play two knockout matches and a city final.

The winners from the eight cities will compete with each other to make it to the national final.

The winners from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will then vie for the Red Bull Campus Championship.

“The reason Red Bull India and I came up with this event is because today college cricket isn’t taken too seriously. There are great players out there in colleges, but they don’t really have a platform.

“We also believe that conducting a South Asian competition will benefit the upcoming crop of cricketers by exposing them to international conditions early on.

“And if the tournament results in try-outs for county teams in England, it can lay the platform for creating better rounded and complete cricketers,” Gambhir said. “The young cricketers will be mentored by the likes of former India wicket-keeper Dinesh Mongia, upcoming talent Varun Aaron, Sachin Tendulkar’s fitness trainer Amog Pandit and the chief consultant of the Red Bull campus cricket and former Karnataka player Ashwin Punja.