With support from sixteen teams from the corporate worlds of IT and banking and finance, leading Indian charity CRY (Child Rights & You), has completed its first ‘Cricket for a Cause’ tournament in the UK, raising 34,000 in the process. The cricket tournament was played out in London’s Regent’s Park over four weekends, culminating in a win for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), who managed to hold off ICICI Bank in a closely contested final match last weekend.
The final was watched over by England cricket selector Geoff Miller, a former England player, who had left the England v Pakistan match at Lords to come to Regent’s Park to see the final game in the tournament and present the winners with their trophies. Third and fourth positions in the tournament went to Wipro and ITC Infotech respectively.
The 5C’s – otherwise known as the CRY Cadence Corporate Cricket Challenge – is already in its sixth season in India, where 56 corporate teams take part in the cricket tournament in order to test and stretch their sporting talents, have fun and raise funds to support CRY’s mission of restoring the basic right of underprivileged children to a healthy upbringing and quality education. The latest tournament in India ensured that 1500 children would receive an education. However, this is the first time it has been played in the UK and organisers CRY UK and their Indian and UK partner Cadence Design Systems Ltd, the leading provider of IC and Electronic Systems Design Automation solutions, are delighted with the response to the tournament and its results.
“Our rules stated that all team members had to work for the company,” says Cadence IT director Richard Hastings. “This helped to promote genuine networking between companies on match days and ensured a real competitive tournament spirit with the best company team taking the honours.” Hastings was briefed by Jaswinder Ahuja, corporate vice president and India managing director of Cadence, to assist in introducing the tournament to the UK.
The 16 teams included 10 from the IT sector, including Birlasoft, Covansys, Iflex Solutions, InfosysTechnologies, ITC Infotech, Lucent Technologies, Polaris, Satyam, TCS and Wipro. There were six from the banking and financial services sector, including Barclays Capital, ICICI Bank, KPMG, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Price Waterhouse Coopers.
“We have started out slightly smaller in the UK, but we’re aiming to grow the tournament each year,” says Nina Munshi, CRY’s UK representative. “All the teams gave us very positive feedback and have promised to play again next year!”
The CRY UK volunteer team has decided that the funds will go to support Project Mon, based in rural West Bengal and Orissa, that assists mentally disadvantaged children.
“Each team paid 1,000 to enter the tournament, a figure matched 100% by Cadence this year,” says Richard Hastings. “In addition, we need to thank our sponsors, Connect Communications who donated 6,000, Ultima Business Solutions, who donated 5,000 and ADSI who gave 500. These donations have meant that all the money raised can be passed straight to CRY, without having to cover costs.”