The 10th year anniversary of the only global cricket tournament for university students, Red Bull Campus Cricket has been underway in India across 32 cities with city qualifiers from 17th February to discover and nurture budding cricketers from college campuses. The Indian Premier League franchise Rajasthan Royals deepens their association with the energy drink giant Red Bull in India and plans to continue scouting talent from the annual international T20 tournament for college cricket teams – Red Bull Campus Cricket
Red Bull Campus Cricket 2021 city qualifiers took place from 17th February to 15th March across 32 cities in India – Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Jammu, Dharamshala, Dehradun, Jaipur, Delhi, Meerut, and Lucknow in the North; Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Indore, Nagpur, Raipur, Mumbai, Pune and Goa in the West; Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Guwahati and Agartala in the East; Bangalore, Coimbatore, Mysore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Vizag in the South. Like last year, RBCC will find their Kochi city champions through their association with Kerala College Premier League T20 Championship which started in February.
The winning college from each city will then proceed to the zonal/regional finals in April. The top two teams from each zone in RBCC will then compete in the National finals in June first week, where the teams will play in the knockout rounds of quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals respectively. The National winner will then represent India in the Red Bull Campus Cricket 2021 World Finals. Past winners from India that have gone on to represent the country at the World Championships are Rizvi College, Mumbai; DAV College, Chandigarh; Swami Shraddhanand College, Delhi; MMC College, Pune.
On the importance of Red Bull Campus Cricket shaping his career, Shahrukh Khan said, “I personally wanted to win the tournament for my team but we, unfortunately, lost it. How I saw it was this would be a chance for me, if I did well there, I would have a chance to get picked. Rajasthan Royals had called me for a trial after watching me play at Red Bull Campus Cricket. It was a very good experience for me.”
On the association with Red Bull Campus Cricket, Jake Lush McCrum, COO of Rajasthan Royals said, “We are proud to be associated with Red Bull in such a powerful initiative to provide a platform to young talent. This competition also gives us an opportunity to identify potential IPL stars of the future and the talent at our trials was very impressive. With the big IPL auction occurring next year, it is a great opportunity for these young players to prove themselves and earn a trial with our franchise, which could lead to a place in our squad.”
KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Lungi Ngidi, Niroshan Dickwella & Chirag Suri are six players who went on to make their names in international cricket for their respective countries by using the Red Bull Campus Cricket platform. Red Bull athlete KL Rahul was the top scorer in the 2013 edition of the competition and credits RBCC for his success at the domestic and international level.
Cricketers like Manan Vohra, Shardul Thakur, Karun Nair, Shashank Singh, Siddhesh Lad, Himanshu Rana, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Anukul Roy, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Ricky Bhui have also reaped the benefits of Red Bull Campus Cricket.
This year will also see the inauguration of the first-ever Red Bull Campus Cricket Women’s edition led by Red Bull athlete and star India batsman Smriti Mandhana. The aim of the tournament is to boost the increasing participation of young and aspiring women cricketers at the university and grassroots level.
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