KATHMANDU, Sept 6: Coca-Cola Indoor Corporate Cup Cricket tournament is set to be held from September 8 to 11 in Kathmandu.
Nepal Sports Management Private Limited is organizing the tournament at Velocity Arena, an indoor cricket hall, at Ratopul in Kathmandu.
At a press meet on Tuesday, the organizer informed that 12 teams from corporate sector will take part in the tournament that is going to be played in the league-cum knockout format. All the teams are divided into four groups and each group consists three teams.
Top two teams from each of the group will advance to the quarterfinals, according to the organizer.
Yeti Airlines, Bottlers Nepal and NCC Bank are drawn in the Group A while Group B consist Sipradi Trading, Himalayan Distillery and Premier Insurance. Similarly, F1Soft International Private Limited, Gorkha Brewery and Hansraj Hulaschand and Company Private Limited are in Group C and Kantipur Television, Nepal Sports Journalists Forum (NSJF) and Samriddhi Foundation are drawn in Group D. The group draws were held at the press meet.
The organizer has fixed Rs 45,000 as registration fee for the tournament where only employees of the company who have been working for it at least three months can participate.
Indoor corporate cricket from Friday
All the matches will be played in 12-Over format, informed the organizer. The first day of the tournament will see four matches while six matches each will be held in the remaining two days of the tournament, according to the tournament coordinator Dipesh Sharma.
Sharma who is also the Director of Nepal Sports Management Private Limited that owns the Velocity Arena, tournament venue, said that the people of corporate sectors showing interest in playing cricket inspired them to host the tournament.
“We have many people from corporate sectors coming to our indoor hall to play cricket and that motivated us to organize the corporate cricket tournament,” said Sharma.
The winner of the tournament will be presented a silver trophy instead of cash prize as the organizer is experimenting the practice of silver trophy for the first time in Nepal. All the other individual awards for the players also will be silver trophies.
The semifinal and the final matches of the tournament will be held on the last day, according to the organizer. All the matches of the tournament will be broadcast live on YouTube.
The total budget of the tournament is Rs 1,020,000 according to the tournament coordinator Sharma. Coca-Cola is the title sponsor of the tournament.