Necessity is the mother of invention.
Though the Punjab XI Kings did not make it to the finals in the first season of IPL tournaments, the owner of the team Preity Zinta has decided to have fun by accepting the suggestions from her think-tank to promote the game.
Now, there are some innovative ways on the cards. It is a process of bringing together the boys from four states Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. A coaching camp and a cricket seminar will facilitate the young talents to get identified, nurtured and groomed into Regional players and later into National players.
This apart, there will be a T20 Tournament called “KXI Cup” with a prize money of Rs 3 Lakhs for winning team and Rs 2L for losing team of the games that will be played in a kind of league format involving five teams. Yuvaraj’s state will send two teams while other states one each. PCA stadium in Mohali and another stadium in Chandigarh, Sec 16 have been booked to conduct this tournament. Punjab Cricket Academy and the state cricket associations have consented to co-operate for the programme that is in action from 28th Jan to 2nd Feb.
Though this attempt might help Preity to identify some fresh talent, there is no doubt this is a far better approach to treat Cricket as an enjoyable game than the serious business approach of Vijay Mallya.