Red Bull Campus Cricket ready to 'Halla Bol' for its ninth edition

February 17, 2020: The ninth edition of the only global cricket tournament for university students, Red Bull Campus Cricket is set to kick off in India across 32 cities with city qualifiers from 13th February to discover and nurture budding cricketers from college campuses.  The Indian Premier League franchise Rajasthan Royals deepens their association with the energy drink giant Red Bull in India and plans to continue scouting talent from the annual international T20 tournament for college cricket teams – Red Bull Campus Cricket

Red Bull Campus Cricket 2020 city qualifiers are taking place from 13th February to 28th March across 32 cities in India – Mumbai, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Indore, Pune, Nagpur, Goa, Raipur & Rajkot in the West; Jalandhar, Dehradun, Delhi, Jaipur, Jammu, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Meerut and Dharamshala in the North; Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kochi, Mysore and Vizag in South; and Kolkata, Tripura, Guwahati, Ranchi, Bhubaneshwar, Patna and Jamshedpur in the East. Tripura & Rajkot are the two new cities that have been added for this edition and will be part of the East and West Zones respectively.

The winning college from each city will then proceed to the zonal/regional finals in April. This year, RBCC will find their Kochi city champions through their association with Kerala College Premier League T20 Championship, of which the finals will take place at Greenfield Stadium on 23rd February.

The top two teams from each zone in RBCC will then compete in the National finals, where the teams will play in the knockout rounds of quarterfinals, semifinals and finals respectively. The National winner will then represent India in the Red Bull Campus Cricket 2020 World Finals. Past winners from India that have gone on to represent the country at the World Championships are Rizvi College, Mumbai; DAV College, Chandigarh; Swami Shraddhanand College, Delhi; and MMC College, Pune.

352 colleges across 30 cities in India competed for the national championship of Red Bull Campus Cricket 2019. Last year, DAV College Chandigarh team beat Hindustan College Chennai team in an exciting low scoring final to emerge the India Champions of the prestigious T20 tournament. Having previously won the RBCC National Finals & World Finals in 2013, DAV College Chandigarh again represented India at the Red Bull Campus Cricket 2019 World Finals in UAE where they qualified for playoffs but were edged out by Pakistan (University of Karachi).

Despite their exit, India found great potential with key players like Treykash Bali (199 runs in the tournament) and Pankaj Sharma (9 wickets) who stood out with the bat and ball respectively. Treykash Bali who has played Vijay Hazare and Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy was the second-highest scorer in the World Finals with 199 runs, while Pankaj Sharma was the second-highest wicket-taker with 9 wickets.

Last year, the unique partnership between the Rajasthan Royals and Red Bull marked the beginning of one of India’s biggest cricket talent hunts as the former scouted young talent during the tournament and at the RBCC National Finals 2019. A team from Rajasthan Royals closely monitored and picked key players and gave them the spectacular opportunity to be a part of the trials conducted by the team along with the possibility of getting picked in the next IPL auctions.

RBCC Player Tryouts with Rajasthan Royals took place at Institute of Sports, Talegaon, Nagpur in the first week of December of 2019. The 4 selected RBCC players were Sushant Singh from Ranchi, FaizamAlam from Delhi, ManikSirohi from Delhi and Sharukh Khan from Chennai (Man of the Red Bull Campus Cricket 2019 tournament in India – From Hindustan College Chennai) who also became a part of the IPL auction but was unsold but got noticed because of his name.

Zubin Bharucha (Rajasthan Royals Head of Cricket) & Romi Bhinder (one of the directors of the RSDMF and also the media and Team manager of Rajasthan Royals) were present to interact with the players during the trials.

On the association with Red Bull Campus Cricket, Jake Lush McCrum, COO of Rajasthan Royals said, “Rajasthan Royals is delighted to be associated once again with Red Bull Campus Cricket. It is a fantastic tournament giving a platform to young, talented cricketers across India and around the world. This has been a core part of our philosophy since day 1. Our coaching team saw immense cricket potential in this tournament last year, in which we were delighted to support in hosting the India final at S.M.S stadium in Jaipur.” 

KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, KagisoRabada, Lungi Ngidi, NiroshanDickwella& Chirag Suri are seven players who went on to make their names in international cricket for their respective countries by using the Red Bull Campus Cricket platform. Red Bull athlete KL Rahul was the top scorer in the 2013 edition of the competition and credits RBCC for his success at the domestic and international level.

Cricketers like Manan Vohra, Shardul Thakur, Karun Nair, Shashank Singh, Siddhesh Lad, Himanshu Rana, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Anukul Roy, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ricky Bhui have also reaped the benefits of Red Bull Campus Cricket.