Little Champs League, an IPL-Like tourney for U-14 begins soon in Mumbai

Since the last eight years, summer vacation of the school-going kids has become synonymous with the Indian Premiere League (IPL). This year too, the IPL will kick start from the second week of April. The young cricket lovers see their favourite players on the big screen and dream of seeing themselves on the same platform somewhere down the line. Monty Desai, who has been working closely with one of the best IPL teams; Rajasthan Royals for seven years, has decided to come up with somewhat similar concept, which will help this budding talent to realize their dreams. The name of the tournament is Little Champs League, which will be played by U-14 boys during the April-May period.

Desai, who is also the first Indian to be an ECB Level 3 Coach, organized this tournament last year as well. Six teams participated and they played 30-over matches, donning coloured jerseys. 14 players were required to be on field during the play as recommended by the Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar to MCA. MIG, GSC, Venus Sports Academy, Naman Payyade, Parekhone and RXCA, the invitational team from Bangalore, participated last year. Rahul Dravid’s son Samit Dravid was a part of RXCA team. Every team played 10-12 matches amongst themselves. MIG was the best team winning all 10 matches.

Sachin Tendulkar, Amit Dani, Dr.PV Shetty, Rahul Dravid are all the well-wishers of this novel concept Dravid was there at the ground to see two of the matches. Some of the IPL players like Sagar Trivedi, Harvinder Saran and Pradeep Sahoo witnessed the final match in 2015.

Just like any other international match, every game that was played in the Little Champs League was followed by a formal post-match presentation, which meant that the Man of the Match award was given to the match winner. Also the best player from the losing team was felicitated by the Man of the Match, which was something unique but a great gesture.

Little Champs League is a serious cricket tournament where the boys play some intense cricket. Last year, four boys who played this tourney graduated to play for the Mumbai U-14 team, which is the biggest reward any aspiring Mumbai player would get at that age.

After the sweet success of last year, this year, Little Champs League has already garnered tremendous response, with 15 teams wanting to participate. However the organizers had to restrict the number to 10. The new teams are: Praveen Amre Cricket Academy Mahim Juvenile, Aditya Birla Cricket Academy, Sanjeevani Cricket Club Bandra, Shivaji Park Gymkhana and Aarey Bhaskar Club.  This year there are 10 teams and each team will have 20 players.  Rahul Dravid has extended his hand of support so we will get to see Jr. Dravid and his team from Banglore playing the League. New venues have been added to the existing list. They are Shivaji Park Gymkhana, Parsee Gymkhana, Aarey Bhaskar, Mahim Juvenile and Payyade Gymkhana.

This tournament is surely going to be the talk of the town as there will be a big number of matches that will played on good and competitive pitches, the match scores will be available online, the name of Top Players will be published and to top it all there will be a Fantasy League as well.

This tournament is organized by SportsLife Performance Managment Private Limited based in Mumbai. People associated with this tournament are Lashkariya Group and Venus Sports Academy, who have stood like a pillar last year as well. Other supporters are Swiss Wraps and Daddy’s Army Cricket Team.

CricketGraph.com team hope that this League is a grand hit this time around as well and may the young and talented boys make a cut into the coveted Mumbai team.