Nagpur: The 21st Inter-Press Invitational Cricket Tournament, organised by Sports Journalists’ Association of Nagpur (SJAN) in association with OCW and State Bank of India, will begin on January 10 at Ambedkar College ground at 8.30 am.
This year eight teams are participating in the tournament and they have been divided in two groups. Group ‘A’ includes defending champions The Hitavada, The Times of India-MT, Sakal and Tarun Bharat. Group ‘B’ consists of last year’s runners-up Lokmat, Punyanagari, Loksatta and Dainik Bhaskar. After the league stage three top teams from each group will make it to the qualifiers. In qualifiers teams will get to play one match each.
Among the winners of the qualifiers the team with the highest run rate will advance to the final. The other two teams will play the eliminator. The winner of the eliminator will advance to the final. From January 11 the matches will be played at Vasant Nagar ground also. The winners will receive cash prize of Rs 21,000 and trophy and the runners-up will get cash prize of Rs 18,000. Apart from team prizes, there will be individual prizes for best player of the tournament, man-of-the-match, best batsman, best bowler, best wicketkeeper, best fielder etc.
The dresses and detailed schedule of the tournament will be distributed to the players on January8at SJAN office at 10 am. During the inauguration ‘Cric Media’ souvenir will be released. The matches will be played with the white balls sponsored by Sports Link, SJAN President Kishore Bagde said.
