Golden Tigers captained by Sagun Kamat and Goa Lions skippered by Swapnil Asnodkar are the two Goan teams featuring along side six other outstation corporate teams ONGC, IOC, CAG, Air India, Reliance and Mahindra in the week-long T-20 tourney
The Goan Network
Goa Cricket Association is set to take the gentlemanly game to a new level in the State with a T20 tourney under their aegis commencing from March 12 called the Goa Corporate League (GCL).
The tourney hosted at the GCA Academy Stadium, Porvorim, will have two matches everyday in the league stage and the semi-finals from March 12-18 at 2 pm and 6 pm respectively. After a rest day to allow their fans to make most of the live telecast of the India-Pakistan T20 World Cup tie (March 19), one can expect a festive cricket atmosphere at the finals at 6 pm on Sunday, March 20, at the venue.
The tourney comprises of eight teams - six outstation corporate teams, namely, ONGC, IOC, CAG, Air India, Reliance and Mahindra - and two well-balanced local teams, Golden Tigers captained by Sagun Kamat and Goa Lions skippered by Swapnil Asnodkar. Both the Goan teams feature the best of their local resources in terms of Ranji stars and emerging players from the age-group level.
In an open interaction with the media on Thursday, Vallabh Prabhu, Chairman of Goa Corporate League (GCL) who was present at the briefing along with Sameer Kanekar and Vikas Parsekar (both, members of the Executive Committee, GCL), believes that both the Goa teams have it in them to reach the semi-finals from their respective groups.
“I feel this is an opportunity for the Goa players to showcase their calibre on a platform featuring top (corporate) teams of India,” he stated.
Incidentally, this daily had done an exclusive close to three weeks earlier on the aforementioned
tourney, to which among outstation teams, the GCA General Secretary, Vinod Phadke had mentioned that FCI and State Bank of Hyderabad would be among the six outstation teams who had confirmed participation. Pointing out the absence of these teams from the two groupings, Prabhu admitted that they were unable to make it. He stated that FCI (who incidentally upset IOC in the quarters of the ongoing AIPSSPB T-20 tourney in Goa) would not be able to make it as the dates clash with another tourney. In the place of these two teams, he revealed that CAG and Mahindra would feature. “CAG is a good team recommended by top players of India, while Mahindra has been with us the last two months and is another good team. In fact, we were approached by Tata through Indian cricket great, Dilip Vengsarkar but we did not find the team that strong to compete in the GCL. We had even considered teams like State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Travancore (featured in the AIPSSPB T-20 tourney)," he said.
On the budget allocated to the tourney, Prabhu revealed that it would be Rs 73 lakh (approx.),while
the winners will bag a purse of Rs 15 lakh, the runners-up will have to contend with Rs 10 lakh. The
man-of the-match awardees will get Rs 10,000 while the man-of-the-tournament will fetch a decent
cheque as well. There will be other special prizes for the cricketers as well sponsored by Adidas. YES Bank will be the title sponsor, with telecast rights given to DD Sports who will do the broadcast from March 15 onwards.
The Goa teams in action are: GOLDEN TIGERS - Sagun Kamat (captain), Amogh Desai, Rahul Keni (wicket-keeper), Shadab Jakati, Reagan Pinto, Amit Yadav, Amulya Pandrekar, Suyash Prabhudessai, Ishan Gadekar, Saurabh Bandekar, Joaquim Moreira, Gaurish Gawas, Ganeshraj Narvekar, Rajshekhar Harikant, Prasanth Parmeswaran. Coach: Prakash Mayenkar, Manager: Jitendra Shah, Trainer: B Prabhakar
GOA LIONS - Swapnil Asnodkar (captain), Suraj Dongre, Keenan Vaz (wicket-keeper), Sher Bahadur Yadav, Snehal Kauthankar, Srinivas Fadte, Darshan Misal, Deepraj Gaonkar, Kashyap Bakhle, Lakshay Garg, Felix Alemao, Buddhadev Mangaldas, Malliksab Shirur, Samar Dubashi, Rituraj Singh. Coach: Ninad Pawaskar, Manager: Niraj Lotlikar, Trainer: Akshay Korde
