Cricket for all: Slum kids to pad up for free KMC camp

Under this programme around 100 underprivileged kids, hailing from the numerous slums, spread all over the city, will be given free cricket-coaching course with the direct support of the Municipal Corporation.

Faiyaz Ahmed Khan, member Mayor-in-Council, started this ‘Cricket for All’ programme, with Former Indian Test opener Devang Gandhi as the chief coach.

Speaking to The Indian Express today, Khan gave a lowdown on the project, which will be conducted out of the Balak Sangha School of Cricket at Northern Park in southern Kolkata.

“Basically, the idea is to give scores of underprivileged children in the city the access to top class cricket coaching facilities, so that they don't get deprived of opportunities,” Khan said.

He further explained, “In the past, the KMC has undertaken tournaments spanning various sporting disciplines. But this is the first time that we are doing a structured long-term coaching programme for children who can't pay at all.”

There would be a running training schedule throughout the year.

With, a band of 12 experienced coaches led by Gandhi, the programme will carefully pick 80 children from the economically backward sections of the city, between the age group of 11 to 13 years.

“We are going to instruct all the ward councilors to take responsibility and identify young kids who belong to very poor background. The idea is to make the ward councilors first select kids, then sponsor them for the trials, and finally, sponsor them for the training period. We are also going to pick kids from KMC-run schools,” Khan said.

Interestingly, the KMC has covered substantial ground on the moolah front too, and have succeeded in involving some of Kolkata's top business bigwigs like Harsh Neotia, Sanjeev Goenka and title sponsor Ultra plus, for the entire new innings.