Shillong, Mar 5: Sixteen boys and girls from Meghalaya have been selected for a camp from the North East/Bihar zone, it was announced by the Meghalaya Cricket Association (MCA) today.
A meeting of the All India Junior Selection Committee and All India Women’s selection committee met here on Sunday to select 25 probables in each of the U-16 boys, U-19 boys and U-19 girls categories. In addition, five standbys in each category were also included.
Fifteen players from each category will be selected after a camp this month who will proceed to the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore for a two-month camp.
The meeting was chaired by Naba Bhattacharjee, MCA Honorary Secretary and Convener of the NE/Bihar zone. The All India Junior Selection was represented by Gyanendra Pandey and Rakesh Parikh. The Women’s Selection Committee was represented Lopamudra Banerjee. Coaches from Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim attended the meeting.
Bhattacharjee stressed on the need for the selected players to be genuine permanent residents of their respective states, instead of including “guest” or “outstation” cricketers, as this would negatively affect morale among local players and harm the development of the sport in the North East, where cricket largely plays second fiddle to football.
He also proposed that in addition to BCCI registration norms, selected players for the zonal camp will also have to produce voter identification either of their own or their parents to ensure that they are permanent residents of the states they represent.
The selectors agreed to implement above criterion and all three selectors expressed their commitment to develop cricket in the region by encouraging cricketers belonging to the region and not “outside imports”.
