In a bid to tap raw cricketing talent in J&K, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is going to hold special talent search camps in JK in April next year.
The decision in this regard was taken by the BCCI National Junior Cricket Committee that met at New Delhi recently under the Chairmanship of BCCI President Anurag Thakur.
Pertinently, it was former JK cricketer and JKCA’s representative in BCCI Ranjeet Kalra who had mooted the proposal to hold special talent hunt in JK on a pattern it’s conducted in other states.
“We at JKCA are grateful to the BCCI especially President Anurag Thakur and Joint Secretary Amitabh Choudhary (convenor, junior cricket committee that looks after BCCI National Cricket from Under-14 to Under-23 age groups) for favorably considering our request by sanctioning talent projects in J&K as a special case,” Kalra said.
“I had, during the course of the BCCI meeting put forward our case very forcefully calling upon the cricket board decision making body to give us special concessions in the light of the hardships that the youth have faced in the last four months. We have lost whole season, no cricket could take place – I had put forward the practical problems that the cricketers and JKCA are facing,” he said.
He said that there is no dearth of cricketing talent in our state and these special camps will provide an opportunity to the State cricketers to exhibit their skills before the best coaches and BCCI officials of the Country. We need to respect the dreams and hard work our cricketers.
Kalra said that BCCI will shortly chalk out a programme for holding two such camps, one at Srinagar and the other one at Jammu under the aegis of National Cricket Academy (NCA) whereby talented and promising cricketers would be shortlisted for further polishing and expert training at the BCCI National Cricket Academies.
The matter already stands discussed with the JKCA President and General Secretary Iqbal Shah who shall be submitting the suitable dates to the BCCI for holding these talent search camps, Kalra added.
The star cricketers like Parvez Rasool and Shubham Khajuria are the players who emerged from the Under-19 level and the main aim about the conduct of talent hunt is to find young players.
“It is known fact that we need to hunt for talented players in young age. We need to find the talent and then train and make it perfect for the highest level of cricket. It is only after that we will be able to raise our standards in national cricket arena,” Kalra said.
