Calcutta, Dec. 16: The talent hunt bug has bitten cricket, with Sourav Ganguly wearing the mentor’s cap along with Kapil Dev.
The nation-wide contest, christened Cricket Star, is being promoted by the UK-based Investors In Cricket (IIC). The winner gets a year’s all-expenses-paid contract with the Leicestershire Cricket County Club, plus a cash prize.
“We are here to seriously develop talent. The format was devised last year with Michael (Atherton) and Nasser (Hussain) on our advisory committee,” said Fraser Castellino, CEO of Cricket Star, who is in India for the regional selections.
The selectors are now doing the rounds of smaller towns. The celebrity judges will join them in the metros. However, with the prince of Calcutta away on national duty, Kapil Dev and Ajay Jadeja will do the job till he is back.
While the first camp will be in Mumbai from December 16 to 18, the Calcutta selections will take place from December 19 to 21 at Ganguly’s Videocon School of Cricket in Salt Lake.
“Sourav is not only one of India’s most successful captains, he is also so articulate. And he is one person who transformed the Indian team,” gushed Castellino.
By the time Sourav returns from South Africa, Kapil and Jadeja would have picked 25 players.
The Cricket Star Academy opens in Mumbai on January 12, where they will go through 11 weeks of training. “We will have top cricketers dropping by to take special classes. Every week, they will play Twenty20 matches and some will get eliminated,” Castellino said.
It is at the academy that the television cameras enter, beaming moments on and off the pitch on Doordarshan and Zee. The audience gets to vote only when the chosen players are down to the final 11.
“We don’t want to miss out on talent because someone else was so good-looking,” he added cheekily.
Any boy or girl above 15 can apply. Leicestershire has a women’s team also.
To take the field, one has to SMS CSTAR to 7575 by December 17. The next stops after Calcutta are Hyderabad and Delhi. “We also plan to roll out the format in the UK and Pakistan next year,” Castellino said.
For now, all eyes are on the Indian Cricket Star.
