An Indian touring team visited a Leicestershire cricket academy last week to compete in a prestigious tournament.
St Xavier’s Collegiate School from Calcutta flew over to play against youngsters from across the county as part of the Goodwill Cricket Tournament 2016.
The tournament was organised by City Cricket Academy (CCA), with the visitors lifting the trophy as a result of their “brilliant team spirit”.
Don Bhagawati, director of CCA, based in Freemans Common, Leicester, said: “We have excellent international relations and this tournament was a demonstration of this.
“St Xavier’s School showed some brilliant team spirit in the final and that really helped them to win the very competitive match.
“As well as inviting touring teams over, we regularly send some of most talented youngsters off to Dubai to enhance their ability at the ICC Cricket Academy, Dubai.
“It’s important to have touring teams come over, it helps young English cricketers improve their game against a different style of play.”
St Xavier’s Collegiate School has a strong cricketing heritage, with ex Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly a former pupil.
The tourists played against a team representing the academy and a selection of talented cricketers from schools.
All three teams played each other once in a league format before the top two progressed to the final.
CCA managed won both of their league matches, while St Xavier’s School managed to beat the Schools XI to put them into the final.
St Xavier’s accumulated 158-8 in their stipulated 35 overs thanks to notable contributions from Mridul Sureka and Rik Sengupta. The hosts were bowled out for 144 with just one over left to play. The game was closer than the scores suggest.
Precision bowling from Archit Agarwal helped secure glory, as he picked up 3-16 from just four overs and won the man-of-the-match award.
For CCA, Micael Javed picked up two wickets for 16 Runs, Kamran Jussab bowled well for his two wickets giving away only 14 runs and Skipper James Smallman also took two wickets for 30 runs.
Archit was awarded Man of the Match for the final and the tournament’s Best Bowler, while Connor Sherrad picked up Best Fielder and Albert Horae was Best Batsman.
Medals were presented by former Leicestershire cricketers Carl Crowe and Laurie Potter.
