Tuesday, Aug 06, 2013
Dubai: Cricket academy teams from the UAE are making waves in the United Kingdom. The G Force Cricket Academy Under-12 boys played 22 matches in nine days against Surrey Outer District, Surrey County Junior squad and Oxford MP Cricket Academy at Epsom College ground and yet finished their campaign with flying colours.
The Young Talents Cricket Academy (YTCA) team too produced impressive performances with victories over Washington and Sacriston Cricket Clubs at the Durham ground. The highlight of the tour was the mammoth 206-run partnership between Sairaj Venkat and Vishakh Chandrasekhar for the third wicket against Sacriston Club to ensure a 257-run victory.
Venkat hit 127 runs with 14 boundaries and three sixes while Chandrasekhar scored an unbeaten 81 studded with ten boundaries and two sixes.
Speaking to Gulf News about G Force’s UK tour, head coach Gopal Jasapara said: “The tour benefited the budding cricketers of our academy. Ten boys from Dubai joined 12 boys from Surrey in a joint coaching programme that we set up with In-Touch Academy in Surrey.”
The G Force team was led by nine-year-old Arnav Kambli. The best batsmen of the tour were Vritya Arvind and Kiefer Dua. Aryaman Mehta was the best bowler and he was well supported by Darsh Desai, Abhishek Chauhan and Arnav Bhavnani. Nathan Gandhi and Rahul Thacker did well in fielding and wicket keeping. G Force’s Under-13 and Under-16 teams are also on a tour of UK.
Young Talent Academy, riding on knocks from Venkat and Chandrasekhar, posted 334 for 4 and bowled out Sacriston for 77 runs. Shashwik Shetty bagged three wickets for just three runs.
In an earlier match, YTCA defeated South Shields by 156 run played at South Shields ground. Though YTCA crashed to 70 for seven, Venkat hit 72 runs and, along with Rahul Bhatia (30) and Joel (23), helped post 220 for 8 in 55 overs. YTCA restricted South Shields to 64 through Abhishek Nair’s three-wicket spell.
By K.R. Nayar Chief Cricket Writer
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
