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Friday, Feb 16, 2007
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Cricket takes a back seat

Stan Rayan

KOCHI: Ernakulam may be Kerala's strongest district when it comes to cricket, it may have produced stars like S. Sreesanth and Tinu Yohannan, but still players from the area don't get to play the inter-university championship in the sport.

Surprisingly, the Kottayam-headquartered Mahatma Gandhi University, which covers the Ernakulam area, has not been sending its cricket team for the South Zone varsities championship for the last three years.

The BCCI and the Kerala Cricket Association may be the richest sports body in their respective zone but it means little to the varsity cricketers.

Lack of funds

"We're not sending the team mainly due to lack of funds," said Binu George Varghese, who heads MGU's Physical Education Department, on Wednesday.

"There are 31 events in the varsities sports calendar and we send teams for just 22, in events where we have a chance of doing well. Three years ago, when the MGU cricket team last played the South Zone, it lost in the very first round. So we stopped sending the team."

So, it just means that the current cricketers are paying for the `sins' of their seniors. Every year, the university weeds out events where its teams are not doing well and sends squads from other games. "This time, we sent teams in kabaddi, powerlifting and table tennis," explained Binu.

Effort in vain

Ernakulam's Maharaja's College won the MGU title in Kochi on Wednesday with St Paul's, also from the district, finishing runner-up but sadly, with no chance of playing at a higher level, the players were just going through a lifeless ritual. For the varsities South Zone ended in Hyderabad three months ago.

This time, the MGU championship featured some very promising faces of Kerala cricket, including the hard-hitting State player Abhishek Hegde and K.X. Manoj.

Calicut University has been regularly sending its team for the varsities meet. "In fact, at the last edition, we lost a close match to Madras in the quarterfinals. Had we won that match, we would have become the first team from Kerala to qualify for the all-India championship," said K.P. Manoj, Calicut's Assistant Director in charge of the Director of Physical Education.

Time for MGU to bring cricket back to life.

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