Pune, 15th May 2017: The final selection day in Pune witnessed a stampede of cricket enthusiasts trying out their chance to get into True Premier League. There were atleast 500-800 participants early in the morning outside Nehru Stadium. The three day selection camp witnessed a total of 3500 registrations out of which 821 players have been shortlisted. This comprises of 478 bowlers and 343 batsmen. The selection camp will now move to Mumbai and Thane.
Speaking at the selection, Mohd Azharuddin, Former Indian Cricket Captain said “During our times, such facility was not available; we had rigid criteria and lesser options. I am very happy that Four Pillars and True Sports have come up with this concept, which is a first of its kind. Here we are going to rural locations and finding out talent. If one player is fit and ready to play, he will definitely secure a place in the team. So focus on your fitness and body, one will definitely be able to perform better.”
Four Pillars Event Management Pvt. Ltd is the super franchise of True Premier League. Sameer Pawani, Director of Four Pillars said, “The league is an innovative idea and it will help create new cricket stars of tomorrow. We have received such an unpredictable response from Pune and we are expecting the same in other cities.Veterans like Mohd Azharuddin, Vinod Kambli and Sanath Jayasurriya are expected to supervise the selection process in Mumbai and Thane
Zahir Rana, CEO, True Premier League said that they were overwhelmed with the response and 60,000 plus cricketers have registered across Maharashtra to play for TPL at such a short span. The tough selection process is on now and 8000 players for 500 teams, 16 players per team/ per taluka are to be picked. Our objective is to identify raw talent across all state of India and provide them a launch pad for their professional career in cricket.
True Premier League is India’s first cricket talent hunt and reality show, where the concept is to unearth cricketing talents across nook-n-corner of the country. The target of TPL is to cover the top 20 states in the country and season 1 begins with Maharashtra. Post registration, the members across Maharashtra undergoes trial selection. Selection trials will take place in 10 cities at 10 different locations on various dates within a month. The selection and filtration will be done by a panel consisting of National players, Ranji players and State-level players and State-level Umpires. Registered players will be checked and groomed in selection camp. Here selectors will scrutinize them and they will come up with last 500 teams. This is a cricket talent hunt with a twist of a reality show. Each team will be eliminated in mentioned knock-out round. But, TV audience can save individual player by SMS voting. Audience Votes will help a well performing player from getting eliminated even if his team loses.
