Hyderabad, Dec. 28: The Andhra Cricket Association received a shot in the arm on Tuesday when Sandeep Patil, director of cricket operations, National Cricket Academy, lauded the body’s endeavour in promotion and development of the game in the region.
“The efforts put in by the ACA administration and the Andhra Cricket Academy are highly commendable. The programmes designed by the director, Andhra Cricket Academy, will be drafted as a model programme by the NCA for other states,” Patil said during his visit to Visakhapatnam to oversee ACA’s ongoing Level-A coaches refresher course.
Andhra Cricket Academy director and former Test player MSK Prasad was humbled by Patil’s compliment. “We are only trying to give something back to the game we played with passion,” he told this newspaper.
Listing out programmes that have caught the attention of the national bosses, Prasad said: “The activity of the Andhra Cricket Academy is not confined to the district headquarters alone but to the sub-centres too.”
“We have appointed two coaches for each of the 13 districts (Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Srikakulam, East Godavari, Guntur, Prakasam, West Godavari, Krishna, Kadapa, Kurnool, Nellore, Chittoor and Anantapur) that fall under the jurisdiction of the Andhra Cricket Association apart from identifying 42 sub-centres to which about 4,200 kits have been distributed so far. Myself and our (ACA) secretary Dr G. Gangaraju, have travelled to every village to take stock of the situation. Also, the physical education teachers in some of the rural areas are being trained with a view to promoting the game,” Prasad explained while acknowledging support from secretaries of all district associations, ACA president S.L. Narayana Row as well as heads of the three zonal academies — M.N. Ravi Kumar, K.S. Bhaskaramamurthy and V. Satya Prasad — in streamlining things.
“Allround efforts have helped us standardise the coaching system across the districts via distribution of notes. Even umpiring books are being translated into Telugu to suit requirements,” Prasad added.
Having achieved at least 30 per cent growth, the ACA now wants to construct mini stadia in each of the 13 districts. “We already have five — in Anantapur, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Kadapa and one coming up in Mangalagiri. The idea is to at least have a play field with a dormitory and a gym that will go a long way in developing the game,” Prasad says.