The 7th annual IDRF 'Cricket for a Cause' tournament concluded successfully at Mitre fields inBurlington, MA on August 4th. UML Seniors team won the Championship for the third consecutiveyear by comprehensively beating Lexington Six in the Finals. Total of 51 teams participated in this six-a-side tournament played with hard tennis cricket balls, helping IDRF's Boston chapter raise more than$10,000. This year the format of the tournament was changed to round-robin resulting in every teamgetting to play at least two games in the first round. Buoyed by the success of cricket, IDRF is lookingforward to organizing Volleyball tournament in Burlington from August 25thonwards.

Each team paid an entry fee of $90 towards this unique fund-raiser. IDRF volunteer Deepthi Goraraised funds by selling home made food and Water/Gatorade during the tournament. Mr. Narendra andJyoti Popat of Hope Foundation were platinum sponsors for the tournament. Sushil Tuli of LeaderBank, a premier financial services organization and Bladelogic, a data center automation companybased in Lexington were the gold sponsors. Patni Computers and Indian Village restaurant in Billericawere the silver sponsors.

Players and spectators appreciated IDRF volunteers' commitment to the cause of helping the needy inIndia, and they were all praise for organizers for carrying out with perfection such a grand event. IDRFwill send funds from this event to Seva Bharathi, a highly reputed NGO in India, for constructing BoysHostel & Vocational school in Katra, on the foot-hills of famous Vaishnava Devi temple near Jammu.The total cost of this project undertaken by IDRF is Rs 30 lakhs ($80K) for which construction workwas undertaken few months back. You can find latest pictures of this project at: http://www.idrf.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Hncontent&pa=showpage&pid=380

The semifinals and the finals were played on August 4th. Lexington team scored a thrilling victory overBCC Blues in first Semi-finals and UML defeated Phillips in the second semis. In the finals, excellentbowling performances by Ahmed and Sabeeh of UML ensured that Lexington could not pile up a bigscore. Target for UML was 40 runs to win which was easily wrapped up by their batsmen.

The finals were followed by the prize distribution ceremony. Chief guest for the ceremony, Mr. SushilTuli, President & CEO of Leader Bank, distributed Trophies, gifts and certificates to the winning teamUML and runner-up team Lexington. Man of the Tournament award was given to Sabeeh (UML) forexcellent all-round performance, Best Batsman to Babar (BCC), Best Bowler to Gaurang Patel(Lexington) and Man of the finals to Ahmed (UML). Outstanding performance awards were given tosemi-finalist team players – Santhosh Desai and Rafiq of BCC Blues, Raidu and Kamal of Phillipsteam. Many volunteers helped with Umpiring for the games, IDRF recognized 15 such volunteerswithout whose effort tournament could not have completed with ease.

From past few years, there is increasing interest from people from different ethnic background besidesIndian community. Lot of teams from different states such as New Hampshire, Connecticut andVermont participated this year.
 

IDRF’s mission is to support volunteer-based, honest and highly experienced non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) in India in serving their populations’ critical needs in education, health care, andwelfare, without regard to religion, caste or creed. We request you all to join us in volunteering or helpus in any way you can to support the ones who need it the most.

Should you have any questions feel free to email: idrfboston@yahoo.com or visit www.idrf.org

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