Majuli is all set to get the cricketing facilities four years after becoming a full-fledged district. The youngsters of the river-island didn’t get the opportunity to take part in any cricketing activities after it was announced as a district in 2016.
A team of Assam Cricket Association (ACA) led by president Romen Dutta and secretary Devajit Saikia visited the district recently and started the arrangement to provide the affiliation to the district association so that the cricketing activities can be started at the earliest.
The ACA will also develop a ground in the island with proper cricket facilities in the next several months.
“In the last four years, no players from the district could take part in any kind of cricket tournaments organized in the state by the ACA as because they didn’t have the association affiliated to ACA. As a result, the youngsters and the cricketing talents suffered. So, we decided to take the initiative. Now the district body will be affiliated to ACA as per the constitution. This is a great development not just for Majuli but for the state as well,” ACA secretary Devajit Saikia said after their visit to the river island.
This effort of ACA will provide a proper platform to the budding cricketers of the river island district of Assam to play and participate in various competitive and official domestic cricket tournaments under BCCI and ACA in the near future.
Saikia said that it will also provide opportunities to groom technical personnel like umpires, scorers, coaches and trainers among others from the district.
The ACA team also met with the local administration and civil society in this regard on September 20.
As a part of the initiative, ACA will, within next 15 days, start the developmental work of Majuli Krira Kshetra ground at Kamalabari which will also include a cricket pavilion in the venue.
“It is expected that the pavilion and ground will be ready to host cricket matches from April, 2021. Curators and experts from ACA will come here and engage in work and will try to make it a good cricket venue,” Saikia added. Similar projects will also be started in Sivasagar and Jorhat in the near future.
ACA will upgrade at least 25 cricket venues across the state. The secretary said that they have discussed the point with the Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and they have got very positive response.
“Our CM has said that he wants to develop at least 500 grounds across the state which is the dream to make the state the sports capital. And in this regard, we have come forward and told the CM that we will develop 25 grounds to proper cricket grounds to which we got warm response from the CM,” Saikia reckoned.
