National Invitation 20-20 cricket in April

Chandigarh, Mar 12 (UNI) The First National Invitation Twenty-20 Cricket Championship will be held here next month.

The tournament executive committee, which met here today under the chairmanship of Chandigarh Twenty20 Cricket Association president I D Kamboj, has tentatively fixed the dates from April 26 to May 1. The Sector 16 Cricket Stadium in Chandigarh and Sector 3 Cricket Stadium in Panchkula will be the venues of the tournament.

The tournament will be played on league-cum-knock out basis between 12 top and renowned teams of the country.

Star-packed Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Minerva Cricket Academy, Canara Bank of Bangalore, Indian Oil Corporation, All India Associate Banks, World Cricket Academy of Mumbai, ICL, LIC Cricket Club, Dell XI, Bishnoi Cricket Club and Air India are among the leadings clubs of India who have already expressed their willingness to participate in championship.

Among the star players, Yuvraj Singh, Wasim Jaffer, Harbhajan Singh, VRV Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Munaf Patel, Sunil Joshi, Joginder Sharma, Rajesh Chauhan, Sanjay Mahajan, Pankaj Dharmani, Dinesh Mongia, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Gagan Khoda, Mohd Kaif, RP Singh and Zaheer Khan are likely to play in this tournament from their respective teams.

Lucrative cash prizes of Rs one lakh and Rs 51,000 will be awarded to the winners and runner-up respectively, besides prizes for individual performances. Total 19 matches between 12 teams will be played for over seven days. The approrixate budge for the National Invitation Championship has been worked out to be Rs 16 lakh.

Among those who attended the meeting were--I D Kamboj, Rajil Swahney, Munish Kapoor, Balbir Singh, Pankaj Gupta, Amarjeet Kumar and Narinder Bansal.

UNI