Omar inaugurates Maruti Suzuki NPL Cricket Tournament

Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah interacting with the players during the inaugural ceremony of Maruti Suzuki Nagrota Premier League Cricket Tournament at Bajalta on Sunday. –Excelsior/Rakesh
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah interacting with the players during the inaugural ceremony of Maruti Suzuki Nagrota Premier League Cricket Tournament at Bajalta on Sunday. –Excelsior/Rakesh

*Rana’s big initiative to promote Nagrota youth

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

NAGROTA Feb 7: Former Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah inaugurated the Maruti Suzuki Nagrota Premier League Cricket Tournament amidst huge gathering of participating teams, spectators and local populace at Bajalta, here today.
The Tournament is yet another innovative initiative of MLA Devender Singh Rana to bring Nagrota in focus and to provide the local youth a massive platform to showcase their talent.
Former Chief Minister and Working President National Conference, Omar Abdullah was accompanied by Devender Singh Rana and a galaxy of National Conference senior leaders during the inaugural ceremony.
In all, 65 teams of 43 Panchayats of Nagrota Assembly Constituency will be participating in this knock-out tournament, the final match of which will be played on March 25, 2016.
Omar interacted with the players of all the 65 teams present on the occasion and also interacted with the cultural troupes, who presented variety of cultural items.
Speaking on the occasion, the former Chief Minster said that youth of the State despite having lot of interest in sports and allied activities and valour and zest for doing better, hardly get much opportunity to showcase their talent and skill, because people around them are least bothered to organise quality tournaments to provide them platform to hone their skill.
He said probably that is one of the reasons as to why our State is still lagging behind in the sports sphere at the National scene, adding that absence of State cricketers in Indian Premier League (IPL) portraits picture of the opportunities and the avenues being provided to the State cricketers at the local level.
Omar further said that the mega sporting events like NPL will go a long way in promoting sports culture in the State and helping in producing international stuff.
Urging upon the people to not to mix sports with politics, Omar, however, said that both sports and politics teaches a person to take success and failure with same spirit.
Earlier, in his welcome address, Mr Rana said “This is my humble effort to give fillip to various activities in the constituency, which has huge potential in various spheres like tourism and sports”, adding that being in close periphery of the winter capital, the constituency can be developed as a multifaceted hub for various lucrative activities. He described the holding of tournament as a step forward to identify talent of youth. He said that their effort will be to pick up the talented players and make them participate in bigger events.
As part of its social responsibility, Maruti Suzuki is providing all the incentives to the budding cricketers to perform and make their mark in the field of cricket.
Prominent among others present on the occasion were former Ministers Ajay Sadhotra, Surjit Singh Slathia and Abdul Gani Malik, former MoS Rashpal Singh and Mushtaq Bukhari, former Chief Secretary and senior NC leader Vijay Bakaya, besides Youth NC leader Ajaz Jan, Member BCCI Ranjit Kalra, vice president JKFA and NC leaders Surinder Singh Bunty and Sajad Shaheen.

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