For Indians, there is no need to mention the craze cricket has among the youth and male junta. But most of the ladies hate cricket because of the reason that their husbands/family stick to TVs wasting most of the quality time. We, a small group of friends (all NRIs) wanted to change that belief in our lives and found the best platform in BATA CUP 2005. Here is the brief on how we achieved!

We encouraged 6 ladies to participate in the BATA CUP just with the intention of having fun while playing the tournament. Slowly we helped them to practice for couple of days and eventually the ladies forced their husbands to take them for practice every day - for about 10 days before the event. With the practice, they got the feeling of the game and started enjoying batting, fielding etc and understanding the game.

With the enthusiasm that they got, we decided to make it more fun by preparing dress code for them - Tshirts with Cricket Logo and their team name (Lucky6) printed on those. They got more charged looking at the custom made T-Shirts and the effort that the guys have put in, and decided to put their best effort in the game so as to see our smiling faces at the end of the game. They kept on practicing, improving and making a game plan to win the games.

When the tournament began, they were little nervous as there is a big crowd to watch the match and cheer the ladies but once in the game they got free and played their own game. In the first game against "Rangeela" team, they ad to bowl first and the other team made a score of 35 runs in 6 overs to chase. With the crowd cheering and the support of husbands, they surprisingly chased the total of 36 runs and surprised all of us by winning the game - thats the moment that they loved the game for the first time. Everyone put their own best effort in the game to win it.

In the final game, LUCKY6 had to face the last year champions "Super6"team and this time these girls are not tensed but want to enjoy the game and put their best effort to make all of us happy. They fought hard, made 27 runs against good bowling attack. Trying to defend the score, they lost the game in 5 overs against good batting but they won the hearts of their husbands and other people that came to watch the match. After the match they are not sad as we expected but all smiles and there is a proud feeling of playing as a team, coming as Runners-up in tournament just after playing cricket for the first time in their lives.

The ultimate winner is the Cricket itself - which helped the ladies to have lot of fun playing as a team and became better friends after the tournament, as husbands we are very happy as whenever there is a cricket match to watch in future, we will have the full support and better cheering team (ladies); We wont have any more complaints about watching cricket for too much time:-)

Congratulations to Super6 team for winning the cup and congratulations to the LUCKY6 team for being runners-up in the tournament but for winning the hearts of the people.

Congrats Lucky6 team: Uma, Sajeeda, Sirisha, Seshasree, Geeta, Anupama
And to Husbands: Eswar, Yasin, Krishnamohan, Prasad, Ravikanth, Ramana

by
Eeswar & Friends