Dubai: The Indian High School Dubai is staging a novel cricket tournament to give their students a feel of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which is organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The school has not only named the teams like the IPL squads, representing different states of India, but it has also conducted a players’ auction to give them a taste of what it is like to be a star player.
Speaking to Gulf News, Dr Tapan Das, Head of the Physical Education Department of the Indian High School, said: “This tournament is conducted exactly on the lines of the famous IPL and commenced on January 28. This event is for Grade 7 and 8 boys and is open to all boys of these two grades at the school. Ten teams under the same names as the official IPL teams have been formed under the guidance of a captain and a manager.”
The replica of the IPL, which is being played in the school grounds with huge fanfare, is as colourful as the Twenty20 league with posters, logos and theme songs.
Huge enthusiasm was generated among the students even before the tournament through an auction similar to the one held by the IPL in Chennai on Sunday.
“Each team is allotted a budget of [virtual money] $100,000 [Dh367,000]. All students who have expressed an interest to play are auctioned and can be purchased by any of the teams,” added Das.
He said a total of 482 students were auctioned.
“The entire process was monitored by the supervisor and the P.E. teacher to ensure that bidding was done in a fair manner and that teams stayed within their budget. Through this exercise we wanted to teach children data analysis, decision-making, financial management and much more.
“The full concept, planning and implementation were undertaken by Saraswathy Raj, the supervisor of the section, and supervised by Dr Parthasarathi Pal, the physical education teacher.”
Das said, once the teams were formed after the bidding process, practice sessions were organised to prepare for the matches.
“The teams are divided into two groups and matches are played with points awarded in the same manner as in the official IPL tournament,” he said.
“The most important factor is that the entire event is managed and conducted by students, commencing from the auctioning to umpiring and scorekeeping. The only difference from India’s IPL is that the cheerleaders are boys. Rolling trophies will be awarded to the winning team and individual prizes for best batsman, bowler and all-rounder will be presented. The final will be held on February 14.”
