Sindhi Cricket League gets seven stars

Buoyed by the success of the inaugural Sindhi Cricket League which began with just three teams, the rising interest in the community has spurred the organisers to raise the bar to seven in the second edition.

New team owners have come forward to sponsor their own teams and compete in the tournament which will commence in the last week of September and culminate in April.

The Sindhi Cricket Club (SCC) under the auspices of the Dubai Cricket Council (DCC) has put together a cricket league with seven teams to motivate the talented young players and to encourage the passion of many Sindhis in the city.

The Sindhi Cricket Committee are led by the mercurial four organisers of the Sindhi Community - Shiva Pagarani of Yogi Group, Paresh Amarnani of Malawi Trading, Vicky Sawlani of Deepak’s and Yogesh Odhrani of ESMA Group - who are in the fore front in organising and conducting these activities.

Mohamed Lokhandwala, Honorary Secretary of DCC under whose auspices the tournament is being played, was pleased to note the rapid growth of the tournament.

"On behalf of Dubai Cricket Council we are pleased to see the tournament grow so rapidly from three teams to seven teams. We wish SCC all the success and promise to lend whatever support is required from our side. It is heartening to see Shiva Pagarani, Paresh Amarnani, Vicky Sawlani and Yogesh Odhrani take up this big responsibility and wish them all the success. Hopefully we will see more communities take up similar ventures and see cricket flourish at the community level too in this country," he said at the draw. 

Odhrani spoke on their objectives of conducting this tourament.

"The SCC together with members of the Sindhi community in the UAE are better known for their business and trade acumen rather than cricketing skills. Many players of the league are leading businessmen in the UAE from various trades, but have now ventured into a new field - to exhibit their love and talent for cricket," he said.

Yogi Group stalwart Pagarani said: "The Sindhi community has so far confined their love for the game by sponsoring local tournaments but now the players and team owners are now geared up to field a strong team in the tournament. Since the formation of the Sindhi Premier league in January 2012, a huge response has been seen even from outside of the UAE. Many countries have invited our teams to play against their clubs and the SCC is looking at possible tours of Kenya, Spain, England, and several other destinations to nurture the passion of the sport."

Tournament organiser Amarnani said: "The SCC has launched Season 2 which is going to be contested by seven teams comprising of 17 players each from October 2012 onwards. Due to the  huge success of Season 1, the second season, has had a flying start as all were finalised within three weeks. Even though Season 2 was designed for six teams due to the over-whelming interests received, we have increased the league to include seven teams."

Following are the teams and owners:

Sindhi Royals (Niranjan Chawla)
Victorious Sindhis (Deepak and Rajiv Sawlani)
Petrochem Sindhi Kings (Pooja Vishan Chhabri and Vishal Chhabria)
Mighty Sindhis (Ashok Shewakramani)
Divine Sindhi (Sanjay Chawla)
United Sindhis (Sanjay Asarpota and Mahesh Kalwani) – Team Owner of United Sindhis
Sindhi Rockstar (Vinod Adnani)

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