Like Sir... Kulkarni gets into school coaching

MUMBAI: In his endeavour to impart knowledge to budding cricketers, former Mumbai Ranji Trophy wicketkeeper and coach Sulakshan Kulkarni has turned to coaching a school team for the last few months.

Since March, Kulkarni has been mentoring the IES Secondary School, Mulund, and Wednesday was a happy moment for him. The senior team made it to the Harris Shield third round with a 152-run win over Vibgyor High School, Goregaon; another 10 players of the school, who will represent them in the Giles Shield which will start later, were part of the Thane-based Sporting CC that finished as runner-up in the Under-14 CPCC tournament.

Kulkarni doesn’t charge for his services. “It’s more of a social cause for me. I don’t charge a single penny. Sometimes, I end up spending from my pocket. It reminded me of old days when (Ramakant) Achrekar Sir used to do the same. During monsoons we would stay back at his place. Hopefully, I can follow in his footsteps,” recalls Kulkarni.

Kulkarni also believes in Achrekar’s another mantra — the more you play, the more you learn — and he is making his players play as many matches as possible. “As most play club cricket for Sporting CC, they end up playing a lot of matches and it helps in gauging how far the players have progressed. In nets, it’s not possible.”

With Kulkarni busy with his academy and personal coaching, which sees players from different countries visiting him, he decided to coach a school team and everything started to fall in place very quickly. “Last year I had decided ‘if I’m in Mumbai I would like to get involved with school cricket’. This opportunity came and as the school was closer to my home and my academy in Thane, I decided to get into it,” said 51-year-old Kulkarni, whose last assignment was batting coach of the Nepal team.

Kulkarni feels the hard hours kids put in during training helped them during the CPCC tournament which saw them play back-to-back matches.

HARRIS SHIELD

BRIEF SCORES: Atomic Energy Central School 157 (Harshil Yadav 48; Yogi Golakia3/44, Anmol Dutta 3/26, Bhoumik Kalwani 3/20) lost to Jankidevi Public School 159/5 (Krish Subramaniam 81) by 5 wkts.

Shishuvan High School 228/8 (Heth Chedda 81; Hriday Khandke 4/63) bt Fazlani Academic Globle 197 (Tirth Gala 3/42, Pratham Maide 3/50) by 31 runs. Rizvi Springfield 328/9 (Mohit Tanwar 97*, Tanzeel Khan 69) bt Shri SKI Jain High School 55 (Aman Ansari 5/26, Samad Shaikh 4/24) by 273 runs.

Crist Church School 109 (Vansh Wadhawa 3/18, Jaikhush Thakkar 3/12) bt Hiranandani High School 70 (Ayan Shaikh 7/12) by 39 runs.

Nandadeep Vidyalaya 85 (Hrishikesh Kajrekar 3/13, Anish Anavkar 3/15) lost to Sau Laxmibai English School 87/1(Saurav Chavan 40) by 9 wkts. Balmohan Vidyamandir Marathi 70 (Aditya Jadhav 6/23, Shyam Jadhav 3/6) lost to Blossoms 71/0 (Dattaprasad Haldankar 32) by 10 wkts.

Ryan International School Goregaon 67 (Devansh Patekar 4/13, Swayam Mohite 3/9) Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar School 69/6 (Arush Mishra 4/29) by 4 wkts.

BJPC Institution 66 lost to SVP School, Malad 65 (Nishad Varkhante 3/15, Soham Nakashe 3/17) by 1 run.

IES VN Sule High School 410/1 (Yash Rajan 131*, Vedprakash Jaiswal 110, Rajsingh Deshmukh 70*) bt Billabong High International 21 (Aryan Padtare 4/6) by 389 runs.

St Stanislaus High School 229 (Shreyas Naik 49; Jatin Walendra 4/50, Soham Teli 3/41) bt IES Raja Shivaji Vidyalay 75 (Arjun Jaiswal 4/14) by 154 runs.

OLPS 292/7 (Harsh Tathare 122, Durvesh Patil 56*, Aryan Agale 45, Akash Salim 3/87) bt Children Aid Society 131 (Durvesh Patil 8/50) by 161 runs.

Amolakh Aminchand Bhimji Vidyalay 137(Amir Khan 3/31, Wasim Gaikwad 3/23) bt Chhatrapati Shivaji Vidyalaya, Dharavi 48 (Tirth Chauhan 6/20, Nishank Jain 4/12) by 89 runs.

Abhinav Vidyamandir 94 (Ayush Karawal 52; Atharva Dakwe 6/14) lost to IES Digambar Patkar Vidyalay 95/0 (Akhil Kadam 37*) by 10 wkts.

PAYYADE WIN CPCC CRICKET TOURNAMENT

Payyade SC defeated Sporting CC on the basis of first innings lead to clinch the Under-14 CPCC Cricket Tournament on Wednesday. Ayush Vartak and Rudra Tank were the star performers for Payyade as they shared seven wickets between to bundle out Sporting CC for 143.

BRIEF SCORES:

Payyade SC 390/5d beat Sporting CC 143 (Herambh Karbhari 47, Ayush Vartak 4/43, Rudra Tank 3/18) on first innings lead.

Yasin Merchant (KG) beat Yogesh Kute (Vashi) 3-0 (81(32)-22, 64-58, 67-13); Siddhesh Mulay (Chiplun) beat Sohail Petiwala (Mazagon) 3-1 (72-45, 60-14,