Syed Kirmani to inaugurate Sri Bhoothanantheshwara Village Cricket Tournament

Syed Kirmani to inaugurate Sri Bhoothanantheshwara Village Cricket Tournament

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, May 7: The much awaited Sri Bhoothanantheshwara Village Cricket Tournament will take place over two weekends – 7th & 8th May and 14th & 15th May under the auspices of Sri Bhoothanatheshwara Temple, Badaga Yedapadavu, Mijar, Mangalore and Sri Bhoothanatheshwara Bhajana Mandali. The tournament will have rubber ball underarm games of 6 overs each. Already as many as 100 teams have registered for the event and the final count of participating teams is expected to be about 125 teams, says Vijaynath Vittal Shetty, Chief Co-ordinator of the event. The tournament will be played in the playgrounds adjacent to the temple at Badaga Yedapadav and three cricket pitches have been developed for the tournament.

Sri Syed Kirmani, the famous former International Cricketer will attend the inaugural ceremony on 7th May at 8:30 a.m. The other dignitaries who will grace the occasion include Dr. M. Mohan Alva, Chairman, Alva’s Education Foundation, Dr. Srikanth Rai, President, DK Cricket Association, Dr. Shouri Rai, Dr. Bhagwandas Shetty, Dr. Uday Shetty, Sri Sanath Semitha, Dr. Kumar Alva, Sri Vivek Alva, Dr. Reema Shetty and Ms. Rasheema Alva.

The tournament carries a grand prize of Sri Bhoothanatheshwara Trophy and Cash award of Rs. 3 lakh. The second prize winners will get trophy and Rs. 1.5 lakh in cash. There will also be cash awards of Rs. 10,000 for Best All Rounder, Best Batsman and Best Bowler. All teams will have to maintain strict dress code of traditional kachche and turban. Special cash prize of Rs. 15,000 will be given to the Best Dressed Team. A special prize will also be given to ‘Best Traditional Bat’ made of coconut leaf butt (Koththalige).

“The main objective of organizing the village cricket tournament is to given exposure to the traditional way of playing cricket to the younger generations and thereby promote social discipline and harmony among the villagers. Over the last few months we have organized many events for reviving rural community life, like Village Games Festival in February, Temple Festival in March, State and Village Kabbaddi Tournament in April and now the village cricket tournament. For all our earlier events we have recieved very encouraging response from the public and I request all the people of the district to similarly come and watch this tournament,” says Vijaynath Shetty.