Coca-Cola's Sprite Gully Cricket championship returns for Season 2
17 Feb 2010
Coco-Cola India has announced the second season of its 'Sprite Gully Cricket championship' as a prelude to the DLF-Indian Premier League (IPL), which will begin from 12 March.
The championship will be held across Bihar, north Bengal and the north east region to discover and encourage young cricket enthusiats in the region.
The event will begin from 19 February and will involve over 1,400 budding cricketers between the age group of 15-24 years from Kolkata, Bardhman, Siliguri, Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Patna and Guwahati.
The winner of the championship, selected from the super league matches played between the city winners and Dotcom Sports (winners of last year's gully cricket), will get a whopping Rs3 lakh prize amount and an exclusive chance to meet Shahrukh Khan, Sourav Ganguly and other Kolkata Knight Rider (KKR) players. The seven finalists emerging from the city league matches will also win Rs1 lakh and get to cheer for the KKR team at Eden Garden in Kolkata.
"Street Cricket is the most authentic format of Cricket in India," says Srinivas Murthy, director marketing, flavors, Coca-Cola India.
Murthy says "Cricket, especially Twenty20 Cricket is a huge passion amongst the youth today. Sprite has been the associate sponsor of KKR and the success of IPL has taken the game to a new high and provides Coca-Cola India a very exciting platform to connect with all its consumers.
Our new initiative, Sprite Gully Cricket Championship, is in keeping with brand Sprite's positioning of Seedhi Baat, No Bakwaas... Clear Hai!.'' Hence we are engaging with all young players to stop preaching and start playing the game. "
The championship is an initiative to build the excitement for the upcoming Twenty20 cricket extravaganza IPL through street matches, which will be supported by TV, radio, internet and ground activities like road shows, music bands, cheerleaders and dance troupes to engage the crowds.