By Sachin Murdeshwar

After 4 days of intense matches, Red Bull Campus Cricket 2018 National Finals comes to a spectacular end. MMCC Pune beat Rizvi Mumbai to emerge the India Champions of the prestigious T20 tournament, which commenced with the city qualifiers on March 12. Marathwada Mitramandal’s College of Commerce will be representing India in the world finals of Red Bull Campus Cricket in Sri Lanka, later this year. Red Bull Campus Cricket India finals were held from May 28^th to May 31^st2018 with eight college teams from across the four different zones competing.

North Zone	Shraddhanand College (New Delhi)	SD College (Chandigarh)
South Zone	Guru Nanak College (Chennai)	Jain College (Bengaluru)
East Zone	YS College (Ranchi)	SOA University (Bhubaneswar)
West Zone	Rizvi College (Mumbai)	MMC College (Pune)

Top scorer in the 2013 edition of the Red Bull Campus Cricket and Red Bull athlete KL Rahul said, “Red Bull Campus Cricket was a game changer for me. It gave me the platform to express myself and grow as a cricketer. Due to injuries, I was dropped from the state side and at the time, it was Red Bull Campus Cricket that played a prominent role in my development. Thereafter I was thrilled to have had a good tournament and be selected for Karnataka. I have never looked back since.”

 

Javagal Srinath, Technical Director – Red Bull Campus Cricket “I am delighted to be part of a tournament like Red Bull Campus Cricket which gives exposure and opportunities for aspiring cricketers to enhance their skills. Many youngsters tend to drop out of colleges in order to pursue their dreams in the world of cricket but this tournament helps to improve their game without comprising on academics. Like in USA, a good player would join a college or university to play a sport like basketball or tennis. Red Bull Campus Cricket is a step in the direction of providing cricket at the college a good lift and recognition. It is great when colleges like MMCC Pune, Rizvi College Mumbai and DAV College Chandigarh, get the opportunity to play at the national and international level at such an early stage. All the best to the finalists of RBCC 2018 to get closer to representing India in the World finals of the only global T20 cricket tournament for university cricket teams.”

At the National finals, Former National Medium Fast Bowler, Venkatesh Prasad said, “I believe that education is as important as the sport for a player. Being a player with education background also helps on the field. More corporates and brands Like Red Bull should invest in honing young talent at the college level and bring them up to play at national and even international level. The likes of KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Shardul Thakur, Manan Vohra, Himanshu Rana and Abhimanyu Easwaran are the emerging and established stars in the India Cricket scene who played Red Bull Campus Cricket in the past. Upcoming cricket stars like Anukul Roy who played RBCC National Finals last year – Marwari College, Ranchi reaped the benefit of the tournament by being known as one of India’s U-19 world cup winning heroes we have today. While the tournament looks for the best college cricket team in India, Red Bull Speedster is a great initiative to find the country’s fastest bowler at the college level. Red Bull Speedster was hosted across eight cities at the RBCC regional finals, with winners progressing to the national finals. These eight fast bowlers competed in the finals where Akash G from Gurunanak College Chennai was crowned as India’s fastest college-level bowler. He will earn the opportunity to train with Varun Aaron and Javagal Srinath.”

Ms. Amrit Kaur Gill, Additional Principal secretary to Chief Minister and Director Sports, Government of Punjab, who graced the finals, said, “I am elated to witness such high level of competition at the university cricket level. Would like to congratulate Red Bull for investing in cricket at the grassroots level, like they have been doing through the past editions and continue their amazing endeavor. Additionally it will be great to witness corporates and brands support university cricket as well. ”

The league rounds of Red Bull Campus Cricket National finals took place at Sector 16 Stadium and Tau Devi Lal Stadium Chandigarh from 28th May to 30th May.

Rizvi College Mumbai reached the finals by beating SD College Chandigarh whereas MMC College Pune beat Swami Shraddhanand College (New Delhi) to get through to the finals.

National Finals:

Match Report of Semi-finals:

Rizvi College Mumbai v/s SD College Chandigarh

Venue: Tau Devi Lal Stadium

Toss: Mumbai won the toss and chose to field first

Score: Chandigarh – 146/8 (20 over) and Mumbai -149/7 (19.3over)

Mumbai won the match by 3 wickets

Man of the Match – Harpreet Brar (Chandigarh) for scoring 47 runs in 22 balls, 4 runs, 3 sixes and 2 wickets

MMC College Pune v/s Swami Shraddhanand College New Delhi

Venue: Sector 16, Chandigarh

Toss: Delhi won the toss and chose to field first

Scores: Pune – 163/8 (20 over) and Delhi – 132/10 (19 over)

Pune won the match by 31 runs

Man of the Match – Divyang (Pune) for picking up 4 crucial wickets

Match Report of Finals

Venue: PCA Stadium

Pune MMCC vs Mumbai Rizvi College

Toss- Pune Won the toss and chose to Bat first

Innings Score

Pune -139/6(20 over)

Mumbai – 139/6 (20 over)

Match tied resulting in Super Over

Super Over Score:

Mumbai – 12 runs

Pune – 12 runs

Post the Super Over, Umpires declared Pune Team as the winner by highest boundary system.

Man of the Match – Rohan (Pune) 

 

Best Bowler of the tournament – Aishwarya (Mumbai)

 

Best Batsman of the tournament – Rituraj (Pune)

 

Player of the tournament – Dhurmil (Mumbai)

 

Speedster Contest Winner – Akash (Chennai)

 

MMCC Pune will now battle it out with teams from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE, South Africa, Australia and England the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Series Championship 2018 in Sri Lanka in September 2018.