Give through cricket - The GiveIndia Bay Area Charity Cricket Tournament

Adnan Kapadia (President, GiveIndia Chapter, Bay Area, San Francisco) talks about a charity cricket tournament they held as part of their Joy of Giving Week 2010 celebrations.

The GiveIndia Bay Area Charity Cricket Tournament was held on 9-10th October, 2010. To qualify to participate in this tournament, the aspiring teams were asked to raise $900 to be pledged to a project of their choice, supported by Apnalaya. Once they qualified to play, 12 eligible teams would compete in a 10-overs-a-side tournament spanning two days, with qualifiers on Saturday 9th October and semi-finals and finals on Sunday 10th October, 2010, at Thornton High School, Fremont, CA.

We pulicised the event through Facebook, email, word-of-mouth communication and flyers. Cricbay, one of the biggest organisations promoting tennis ball cricket in San Francisco and the Bay Area, helped us in organizing the event. They were a big help in providing us with the resources required to host this tournament and booking the grounds, without which organising the tournament would have been very difficult. They were also our means to get in touch with over 66 cricket teams who could be potential participants of the tournament. Besides Cricbay’s teams, we also got in touch with the local Indian cultural organisations in the Bay Area and invited them to participate in the tournament.

However, the response received was much less than what had been expected. Teams found a wide variety of reasons not to participate in the tournament. It was a steep learning curve for the GI team and we know what to expect the next time the tournament is organised.

Finally, 4 teams, Team Aptina, the Daredevils, 11’s and I-11, confirmed their participation and we decided to shorten the tournament to a single day, Sunday 10th October.

The day proved to be ideal for cricket, with clear skies, bright sunshine and temperatures in the late 70’s! All four teams and the GI volunteers arrived well on time, which was commendable since it was 9 am on a Sunday morning! Teams picked from a hat by a neutral umpire played two qualifying matches. Special thanks go out the umpire, who very kindly volunteered his time and umpired two matches, one qualifier and the finals. Team Aptina played the Daredevils and I-11 played the 11s. Both proved to be exciting matches and after 20 intense overs, the Daredevils and I-11 were victorious in their respective matches. After a 15-minute break, the Daredevils played I-11 for first and second place, and team Aptina played the 11s for third place. Both matches again, proved to be extremely close and all the teams were well matched. By 1 pm we had the results, I-11 won first place, the Daredevils were second and the 11s were third. The players were provided lunch and water, kindly sponsored by an anonymous donor, whose condition for donation was that we promote the cause of GiveIndia, which is what the whole day was about.

Following the prize distribution ceremony, the players were invited to pledge amounts they planned to raise by the end of the year and the response was very heartening since a number of them pledged sizable amounts, all directed to Apnalaya. Players from the tournament raised and donated a total amount of $2385.81 on the spot.

Cricbay has announced that they will partner GiveIndia once again and help organise the next tournament, to be held tentatively in March 2011.

It was encouraging to see all the players participating the right spirit and we believe that now that the tournament has taken place once and the cause of GiveIndia has been spread, more players will be keen to participate in the next tournament. The GiveIndia team will need to begin publicity for the tournament earlier than we did this time and will probably need to set a more modest target to be raised by each player, but we believe that it will happen again and will be much bigger and better the next time.