In what turned out to be a first of its kind victory, The St. Xavier’s Collegiate School won the Goodwill Cricket Tournament 2016, which was an international inter school competition, hosted by the City Cricket Academy in Leicester, UK. The tournament took place from 31st May 2016 to 3rd June 2016. This is the first time a school team from Calcutta has won such a tournament. According to the elated Raju Mukherji, the school team’s mentor, who happens to be an Alumnus of the school and also former Bengal Cricket Captain, this is an outstanding achievement to the boys as well as for Calcutta because neither him or Sourav Ganguly even, has managed to achieve such a feat back in their times.
The tournament was a 35 over-a-side format event which saw two other top teams from UK apart from the champions face off in a round-robin tournament. The Park-Street boys defeated the City Cricket Academy of Leicester XI by 14 runs to life the trophy. There were many players who contributed significantly out of which, Shashvat Kumar of class XI, led the team just as a skipper should with 7 wickets and chipped in with the bat too. In his own words, it is like ‘a dream come true’ for him after leading his school side, which was once led by the legendary Sourav Ganguly, to victory on foreign soil. He was cool and composed at the face of challenges such as long boundaries and chilling weather. Mridul Sureka with an impressive 98 run knock in the final definitely was instrumental in the team’s victory. He received a special award for his batting prowess in the all important final. However, it was class VIII youngster Archit Agarwal who received the best bowler award for his excellent off spin performance.
Apart from these players, Deep Sagar Das also got a special award from former Leicestershire cricketer Laurie Potter for his six wicket haul, along with Rik Sengupta, who got recognition for his keeping skills – very much expected from an Adam Gilchrist Fanboy! ALSOC members Pradyuman Kajaria, Varun Modi and Vishal Sahay too travelled with the team to England to motivate and cheer the kids. According to Father Benny Thomas, the principal of the school, this win can be the foundation stone, stepping on which, he wants his school to participate in several more such inter school competition.
Off the pitch too, the champions did a bit of sight-seeing as well including Buckingham Palace, Warwick Castle, Leicester Clock Tower and the all important Lords Cricket Ground. They also visited the King Power Stadium as they know a trip to Leicester is incomplete if you do not visit the home ground of the EPL 2016 champions-the Leicester City Football Club’s ground.
Source: http://goo.gl/WxZcqB
