For yet another time, Allahabad Cricket Association to hold Merchant Trophy tie

LUCKNOW : For the fourth year in succession, the Allahabad Cricket Association has been given the responsibility to conduct the Central zone league match of the Under-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy in the last week of this month.

ACA, which has been conducting the junior cricket matches for the last four years, involving hosts Uttar Pradesh, would be hosting the tie between UP and Madhya Pradesh from October 27, at the Madan Mohan Malviya Stadium, which still lacks a lot of amenities required for the board trophy.

“We lack good dressing rooms, attach toilets for players and a room for match referee. But we are happy that we have been getting matches on regular basis,” an ACA official said on condition of anonymity on Thursday.

“If we get these facilities here, we would be able to hold even Ranji Trophy matches in future,” he added.

Though Rae Bareli has officially been marked as the hosting unit for UP vs Uttarakhand match from November 18, the UP Cricket Association has decided to shift the match to somewhere else.

“Things aren’t ready at Rae Bareli, but soon it would graduate to that level, where it can conduct junior cricket matches on regular basis,” UPCA’s manager, cricket operations, Manoj Mehrotra said on Thursday.

Districts like Fatehpur, Jhansi, Etawah, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur and Mathura will have good playing facilities in future and UPCA will conduct junior cricket matches in these districts.

“There is an overall development of facilities for the conduct of matches in these districts, and once they are ready, we can think of allocating matches to them from the next season,” said Mehrotra, who claimed that an alternate venue in place of Rae Bareli would soon be announced.

Uttar Pradesh, which have been doing wonders for the last two season in junior cricket, losing in the national finals in consecutive seasons, would begin their Central Zone campaign this season with a three-day match against Vidarbha from October 21 at Aligarh.

After playing against Madhya Pradesh at Allahabad from October 27, UP would travel to Raipur to play against Chhattisgarh from November 2 and then to Jaipur to play against Rajasthan from November 12.

ON TARGET!

LUCKNOW Shivam Sharma -led Uttar Pradesh would be looking to continue their winning streak in the Under-19 Vinoo Mankad Trophy when they take on Gujarat in an Elite Group match, at the Lalbhai Contractor Stadium in Surat on Friday.

Uttar Pradesh lead the 18-team table with 12 points with three wins in as many as matches so far. Madhya Pradesh and Punjab (both with 12 points each in four matches each) are chasing the UP side closely.