Coaching Beyond, HUL join hands to promote women’s cricket

As many as 50 young cricketers - 25 from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and 25 from Tamil Nadu – will be selected through talent hunt programmes and will be trained by Coaching Beyond

Hyderabad: The Coaching Beyond and Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) joined hands to promote the women’s cricket from grassroots in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu as they announced Junior Athlete Development Programme, in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

As many as 50 young cricketers – 25 from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and 25 from Tamil Nadu – will be selected through talent hunt programmes and will be trained by Coaching Beyond and help them achieve their dream.

Former Indian cricketer, coach and the co-founder of Coaching Beyond, Ravi Shastri said that women’s cricket is the next big thing. “We have seen the interest in women’s cricket grow immensely. With the Indian Under-19 team winning the World Cup and with the Women’s Premier League (WPL) set to begin, we feel this is the right time to start this programme,” he said.

R Sridhar, co-founder of the academy, said that they will conduct a talent search in 20 centres in districts of both Telugu States and will select talented cricketers. “Once we select them, we will conduct tournaments in Hyderabad as well as Chennai and select top 50 talented cricketers for the programme. They will be groomed for three years. They will be sent on exposure tours abroad and play matches. Our goal is to produce complete athletes,” explained Sridhar.

Meanwhile, Bharat Arun, co-founder of Coaching Beyond, said, “We coached India for so long and we want to impart knowledge to youngsters at the grassroots and provide them the platform to achieve their dreams.” He further added that they will also have an ‘Online Coach Education’ programme through which they will train coaches from across the world.

Speaking on the initiative, Srinandan Sundaram, Executive Director, Food & Refreshments, HUL, said, “For a while now, young girls in India have not had a uniform playing field to pursue their passion in sports, often due to lack of access to coaching academies, infrastructure and mentors. We aim to bridge this gap and Coaching Beyond is our perfect partner with such facilities. We want to encourage the young athletes and we want to give something back to society,” he said.

Later, they felicitated Hyderabad cricketer G Trisha who was part of India Under-19 team that won the World Cup recently.