The Hindu Business Line : Cricket tournament in Bangalore taps budding talents

The second Himalaya Chyavanprasha Cup (a cricket tournament for the under-15 launched by the Himalaya Drug Company), which just concluded in Bangalore, has managed to hit two birds with one stone. The company, which wanted to do something different in the corporate social responsibility space and to promote budding cricket talents, has achieved its objective.

"Usually, the under-15 year-olds do not elicit much interest from the public. "But remember that this is the age to catch talent," says Mr Subrata Dutta, Business Head, Consumer Products, HDC, "This is when they are serious about sports."

Twenty-one teams from all over the country participated in this year's under-15 cricket tournament. Last year, the first year, it was on a lower scale. "This year, apart from bigger cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi, we took the tournament to Dhanbad, Lucknow, Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Kanpur," says Mr Dutta. The company has plans to extend it to Pune and Kolkota next year.

Having spent close to Rs 50 lakh on the tournament, HDC is planning to sponsor girls' cricket soon. "At the adult level, girls' cricket seems to be doing much better than men's tournaments." Mr Dutta says. Whether the sponsoring product would be Chyavanprasha for girls' cricket too is not yet decided, he adds.

Though this is the first CSR initiative on such a large scale, HDC has had popular cricketers like Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif endorsing its products earlier. "We are looking at other cricketers for endorsements though we have not finalised on anyone yet," says Mr Dutta.

HDC is also planning to conduct a coaching camp for under-15 year-olds from SAARC countries next year. Other plans include a social security initiative for budding cricketers. "This may make them look at cricket more seriously as a career. In the current scenario, people who don't make it to the big league face a lot of financial problems," says Mr Dutta.

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