Dubai: Devadigas clinch Nama Tuluveru FCC Cricket Trophy
Report: Shodhan Prasad
Daijiworld Media Network - Dubai
Pics: Sudhir Suvarna and Ashok Belman (GK)
Dubai, Apr 20: Nama Tuluveru UAE's 'Friendly Community Cricket 2013', a spectacular event professionally organised for the first time with 12 Mangalorean community teams was successfully held Friday April 19 at Al Jaber Grounds, Dubai on two grounds simultaneously from 7 am to 7 pm.
It was a gloomy weather with lot of breeze, cool for all the teams to start with a few drops of rain keeping the ground set for the teams to play good cricket. All the enthusiastic teams arrived in time as fixed in the fixtures and the match started as scheduled except for the Mogaveers team who got a walkover for not arriving on time.
Shodhan Prasad of Nama Tuluveru opened the day with a welcome speech and a prayer. He then introduced his team consisting of Sudhakar Alva who was the main person managing the whole event, Purushottam Salian and Prabhakar Suvarna, the jury and qualified umpires Althaf Khalife, Sudhir Suvarna and Toufiq assisted by Sudhakar Alva and Imran.
The final was a tie between Devadiga Sangha team and Nirel Film team in an interesting game of tough fight, every ball throughout the 8 overs. Nirel team batted first scoring 78 runs with top score of 26 by Pritam while Devadiga team chased with 78 runs with top score of 36 by Sunil. As per the rules set, in case of a tie, the runs scored in first two overs decide the match. Nirel team scored 6 in first two overs while Devadiga team scored 20 in the first two overs, hence they were declared winners.
The tournament started with Reliable Fabricators team v/s Mangalore Challengers where Mangalore Challengers won by 9 wickets. The second match was between Nama Tuluveru team and UAE Bunts where UAE Bunts won by one run. Then was Padmashaali team v/s Nirel team wherein Nirel team won by 7 runs. It continued with the below:
In the semi final between Nama Tuluveru v/s Devadigas, Nama Tuluveru topped the table on run rate but lost to Devadigas by 27 runs. In the semi final between Nirel and Ganigas, Nirel won by 3 runs. Hence Devadigas and Nirel came to the final fight.
Best batsman title was won by Krishna Prasad of UAE Bunts for scoring 82 runs in league matches. Best Bowler was Sunil of Devadigas who took 6 wickets in the matches. Man of the series went to Dheeraj of Devadigas who scored a highest of 68 runs and took 6 wickets.
Before the prize distribution ceremony there was a raffle draw and thanksgiving wherein the organisers thanked Younis of Saheban UAE for sponsoring the trophies and medals of the tournament, Chilly Willy Trading for supporting the event with energy drinks for all the players, Divesh Alva and Skehar Shetty of Woodside Restaurant for distributing free lunch for all the players and also for keeping the food stall open throughout the tournament with snacks and drinks, Noel Almeida for arranging beautiful tent and chairs, Purushottam Salian for arranging generator and sound, Shubhakar for arranging mementos for all the teams, team managers and supporters, Imran for the ground, Ajmal for the score keeping and Navin and Deepak S P who kept the tournament lively with their beautiful commentaries filled with humour.
The winner and runners-up trophies were presented by Younis of Saheban UAE while Man of the Series, Best Batsman, Best Bowler trophies were presented by Divesh Alva, Shekar Shetty and Sudhakar Alva. Felicitation to umpires was done by Purushottam Salian, Prabhakar Suvarna and Deepak S P.
The professionally organised event was witnessed by a large number of Kannadigas who came with families, friends and celebrities from Nirel movie who came to cheer up the teams.