Dubai: The Kerala Overseas Cricketers (KOC) team flew out on Thursday to Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, to play in a two-match Friendship Cup series against Kerala Young Veterans, made up of the state’s renowned players. Apart from playing matches they will also honour outstanding players and people who contributed immensely to the development of the game and even donate money to charity.
The KOC team, led by CTK Usman Kutty, is made up of some of the star performers in UAE’s domestic cricket and players from around the world who had represented the Kerala state team before taking up jobs in different countries of the world. The concept to bring Kerala cricketers from around the world under one umbrella was evolved in 2013 and has created such a huge impact that the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) is backing the organisation and its activities. Players settled in not only GCC countries and the Far East, but also the United States, are now part of KOC, which has already toured Kerala twice in 2012 and 2013 and played at Kochi’s Tripunithura ground and the Wayanad Cricket Stadium.
This is the third tour of KOC and the two matches are being played at the Kerala Cricket Association’s ground at St Xavier’s College on January 16 and 17. Their opponents Kerala Young Veterans team is made up of players who hung up their boots but are still active in cricket as coaches like KN Ananthapadmanabhan, Sunil Oasis, M.A. Sateesh and Mohammad Afzal.
The KOC team is being sponsored by Consolidated Shipping Services (CSS), one of the leading sponsor of UAE’s domestic cricket, Blue Ocean Training and Consultancy and City Target and Elso Electro Mehanical. “We are not merely a cricket team created to play matches but we are on a mission to help the society and players,” said CTK Mashood, who has repeatedly won Shyam Bhatia’s most outstanding domestic player award, and is a prominent member of the KOC team.
KOC will honour Kerala’s outstanding performers at a colourful function to be hosted by KCA and even donate Rs50,000 (Dh4000 approx) for a charity organisation.
Team: CTK Usman Kutty (Capt.), S Santhosh, P G Sundar. Haneesh Babu, Fida Asghar, CTK Mashood, B Shajil, Rejee Mohan, CCO Ali, M. Hareesh, A Manoj. PP. Nowfal. Ananda Raman, Vinod R Nayar, Sajeev G Menon, Biju Thomas, Balaji Narayanan, Sathya Menon and P. Prajeet
