[edit] Records Galore at FutureTech Vibha Cricket 2007!

Vibha Atlanta Team

Atlanta, GA: Cricket: it gives us joy. It brings us sorrow. It gives us hope. It gives us friends. It brings us together. It divides us at times. It brings out our character. It’s almost a religion for some. It gives us tension. It relieves our tension. At the end of the day, it gives us a reason to celebrate life; something to look forward to and for some, there is no bigger joy than watching a great game of cricket. And imagine the feeling to be part of such a game. Being on the field on the last ball of the last over. Vibha cricket is no different. It has all the above and more. It not only provides great entertainment and excitement to a lot of players and fans, it also helps bring smile to hundreds of underprivileged children.

The venue is the same: the grounds at Georgia Tech, Atlanta. The rules are the same. But any similarity with previous years ends there. The 9th Annual FutureTech Vibha Cricket 2007 saw a lot more excitement, a lot more thrills, and broke several records. Over two weekends in May, more than 450 players from fifty four teams (the biggest Vibha Cricket Cup ever), from all over Atlanta and other cities – Chattanooga, Columbus, Birmingham - played their hearts out to chase the trophy in this knockout tournament. The tournament was off to a great start with the Chief guest, Mr. Kenneth Cutshaw, Honorary Counsel for India in Atlanta, present to grace the occasion. “I truly believe in the cause of Vibha of helping underprivileged children lead a better life, and encourage all participants to support the cause”, he remarked while formally inaugurating the tournament.

With so many teams competing, the tournament was spread over two weekends. The initial rounds got off to some predictable outcomes. Some teams came purely in support of the cause and had fun. The King-Konks came along even with some professional cheerleaders. From the second round onwards, the competition became fierce and the tournament kept getting more serious. We saw some great teamwork and some exceptional individual performances including couple of hat tricks by Yogesh Bharadwaj from the Blue Panthers and Manish Gopaldas from Rebels United.

The earlier rounds of the Vibha Cricket Cup are as important as the semis and the finals. The reason: top few teams get a chance to be invited to play the invitational Vibha Cricket Super-16 tournament to be held on June 30th. The earlier rounds saw some great cricket, some excellent bowling and fielding and especially huge sixes, which easily cleared the ground. One of the special mentions of the earlier rounds was the match between Predators and Decatur Dragons. The innings from Predators created not one or two, but four new Vibha Cricket records. Highest total for a team (150), highest score by an individual (98 not out by Azeem Kudchikar, highest number of sixes by a team (18) and highest number of sixes by an individual (you guessed it... Azeem hit 13 sixes... almost all of them out of the ground). However, Predators lost in the quarterfinals to Alpharetta Monsters in a closely fought match going down by one run.

Another exciting match that kept the players and the spectators guessing till the last ball was the one between Martin Maniacs and Marietta Mayhem. Not only the scores but also the number of wickets lost by the two teams were tied. The winner had to be decided by the team that scored more at the end of 5 overs. After the match, one of the best comments came across: 'Watching Vibha Cricket was more fun than watching the World Cup this year'.

The first semi-final clearly demonstrated the domination of Blue Panthers all through out the tournament. They had defeated all their opponents convincingly and once again defeated their semi-final rivals, Alpharetta Monsters in a low scoring match. Monsters managed only 56, which was easily chased by the Panthers losing only one wicket in the process.

The second semi-final was one of the most exciting matches of the tournament. And perhaps the biggest upset. Martin Maniacs defeated one of the favorites of the tournaments, Purple Bulls, scoring 91 runs with the loss of three wickets with a classic innings by Hamid Tirmizi. ”The Martin's Maniacs look forward to participating in this Atlanta tradition every year. Our team this year is represented by four nationalities - South Africa, Pakistan, Australia and India. We were proud to contribute to this worthy cause and congratulate the Vibha and its volunteers on putting on a classy tournament. For us ’every game is a bonus’, and the tournament is a bonus to help needy children”, said Karun Krishnaswamy, the veteran captain of Martin’s Maniacs. They surely deserved their place in the finals.

And then there was the final. The road to Finals was a tale of two teams. Blue Panthers, a regular at Vibha Cricket Tournaments had got close to the trophy but had never won it before. This time they played like champions right from the beginning. They had convincingly won all their matches (just like Australia in the world cup) and were just one more game away from the trophy. Martin Maniacs, a team who clearly enjoys its cricket, won a lot of close and hard fought matches to reach the final. They were ready to prove that they can continue their streak and prove to be the best. Blue Panthers were the one to bat first and once again displayed their dominance, crossing the 100 mark and set a target of 105. Martin Maniacs, perhaps finally ran out of steam for the tournament and could only score 48 in the allocated 10 overs against some extremely fact paced bowling. The new Champions: Blue Panthers.

Arpit Bhoti of Blue Panthers and the Man of the Match of the finals said "We were determined to win this year's Vibha tournament for two reasons - firstly, this was the only title we were deprived of after having reached semi-finals and finals for the past few years and were desperate to win this one; and secondly, we wanted to win it as a bidding farewell for our long-time friend cum player cum coach - Naresh Naik as he leaves for India for good. We played as a team rather than as individuals - and I think that's the reason we won all the games convincingly. Last but not least, we would like to thank Vibha for all the hard work they put in organizing this grand scale event".

Sravan Vellanki of FutureTech presented the trophy for FutureTech Vibha Cricket Cup 2007. While giving the trophy, Mr. Vellanki emphasized that he was extremely pleased to be associated with Vibha and encouraged players to support the cause. Hope Dental group Man of the Series trophy was presented by Dr.Asha Vellanki to Hamid Tirmizi. Avion Systems Man of the Final trophy was presented by Kanchana Raman, CEO of Avion Systems to Arpit Bhoti. Indsource Best Batsman to Azeem Kudchikar and Pyramid Best Bowler to Anubhav Jain were presented by Moni Chandran, CEO of Indsource.

The organizer of the tournament, Srinivas Vemulapalli said in his closing remarks “We are very happy to announce that the goal of raising $25000 was met with this tournament. The net proceeds from this tournament alone would support the annual budgets of two of the forty projects (www.vibha.org/projects) currently supported by Vibha.” A big Thanks to all the players and all our sponsors - FutureTech Consultants, Primus Software Corporation, Dosa Houze, Semafor Technologies, Delta Information Systems, IndSource, Froots, Khabar, OmniSoft, EIS Technologies, Hope Dental Group, Avion Systems, Citibank and ProActive Resouce Inc.

See you all at next year's big event: 10th Annual Vibha Atlanta Cricket Cup. But before that, see you all the 'Indian Ocean' concert later this fall. For details, check out: http://atlanta.vibha.org. It is fitting to end this note by Thanking all the Vibha volunteers who are the heart and soul of Vibha, and who always put their best forward in making this a successful event.