Red Bull Campus Cricket World Final to be better than ever this year: Kuruppu

While Sri Lanka attempts to introduce youngsters to the national team, with a view to the World Cup next year and the World T20 in 2020, university-age cricketers from around the world have a chance to hone their skills against the best in the world when the Red Bull Campus Cricket arrives in Colombo in September. The Campus Cricket World Final, which is now in its seventh year, has helped a generation of young cricketers get the taste of the big time, both in terms of the intensity of competition, as well as the training facilities and lifestyle of top cricketers. This time, says tournament director Brendon Kuruppu - a former Sri Lanka cricketer and selector - the competition is set to be tougher than ever. “Every year we have played this tournament, the standard has improved,” Kuruppu said. “The last two years of World Finals were especially competitive, with teams from South Africa and Bangladesh playing very good cricket, in addition to the team from Sri Lanka. The thing that’s really valuable for those cricketers is the experience they get from this tournament. They are getting the first-class facilities, venues and hotels that a national cricketer will experience. These university students get that exposure, and they are very keen to participate in this tournament.” In past years, Campus Cricket has seen the likes of South African fast bowler Lungi Ngidi, batsman Aiden Markram and Indian batsman K. L. Rahul take part in the tournament, before eventually going on to become selected for their national sides. The teams representing Sri Lanka have also been graced with national players - Niroshan Dickwella, Dasun Shanaka and Dhananjaya de Silva all taking part, in addition to several others. The tournament shapes as a particularly vital one for Sri Lanka’s emerging cricketers, because there is no intensive domestic T20 tournament presently in the schedule in which to develop their short format game. The Campus Cricket World Final may be labelled the most high-profile T20 tournament to be played in Sri Lanka, aside from international matches. “This is an under-23 tournament, and Sri Lanka has not played an age group tournament of that nature in T20s for the last couple of years,” Kuruppu said. “In that sense, it is an important one.” This year’s World Final will be played between 23 - 29 September in Colombo, and will feature teams from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and the UAE, in addition to the Sri Lanka side. The teams will play each other in a round-robin format before the top three teams move into an IPL-style playoffs sequence.