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Thursday Dec 12, 2024
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With some new additions to existing components, the much anticipated Most Popular competitions of the Dialog 4G-the Sunday Times Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2018 will officially commence from 1 October.
In addition to the All-Island Schools and the Emerging Schools categories, the organisers have decided to give room for a new category - the Girls’ Schools group - which will undoubtedly add glamour to the 26-week-long competition. Currently, the number of girls’ schools competing in the Sri Lanka School Cricket Association (SLSCA) annual tournament have risen up to 32 according to official statistics, and recognising the girls’ efforts will surely boost their morale, as it surely does for the boys.
In addition, the organisers have also gone to the extent of including a category for the girls in the main award presentation, which will be wholly-based on annual tournament statistics conducted by the SLSCA.
The Most Popular competition will now have three categories in all with the inclusion of a girls’ contest. As mentioned in previous weeks, the Most Popular competitions will kick off from 1 October and run for 26 weekends, alongside the ongoing Under-19 schools cricket competition season, and come to an end in March 2018.
Coupons will be made available for readers to vote for their favourite schoolboy and schoolgirl cricketers from 1 October, first appearing in the Sunday Times. Coupons will continuously be published for 26 weeks in the English weekend newspaper the Sunday Times, English dailies Daily Mirror and Daily FT and Sinhala dailies Lankadeepa and Ada.
In addition, Dialog Axiata will open its web portal for supporters to vote for their favourite schoolboy cricketer. As with last season, there will be a different method to follow the digital process of voting for the favourite schoolboy and schoolgirl cricketer to make them the Most Popular segment winner.
As usual schoolboy cricketers will come under different categories, mainly the All-Island and Emerging categories. All schools competing in the ongoing Inter-School Division I tournament will be categorised under the All-Island Schools bracket while the remaining schools, competing under the Division II and III categories, will come under the Emerging Schools segment. The competition for girls - the Girls’ category - will be for players of the 32 schools currently registered with the SLSCA.
As usual players who have represented their respective school in first XI cricket and have a tally of 400 or above runs or 25 wickets or above in the last season will automatically be eligible for the Dialog 4G-the Sunday Times Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2018 competition.
With the introduction of the digital voting mechanism, the entire interface of the competition is expected to reach another level. However, players who wish to enter the fray will have to confirm their participation by registering online at www.dialog.lk/cricket. Even schoolboy cricketers whose names are entered into the competition by readers must register. Players who registered online will be officially scrutinised over their eligibility and entered into the online voting mechanism, while the customary voting through coupons will also be active. The dates for registration and scrutinising methods will be communicated soon.
Both coupon votes and online votes will be counted on a weekly basis and the official results will be published every week beginning from Sunday in the five newspapers and their websites as well as that of Dialog Axiata. The deadline for online voting will be Wednesday noon while the coupons deadline will be Thursday noon, weekly.
At the same time readers who help the young cricketers reach the top this season will also be rewarded on a weekly basis. Dialog Axiata will be generous in giving out gifts to four lucky winners among the voters, encouraging readers to be more invested in the contest as well as the future cricketing talents of Sri Lanka.
The whole of the 26-week-long program of 2017 had a fitting end with the grand awards ceremony held at the Nelum Pokuna Theatre on 29 July, where Nipun Ransika of P. de S. Kularatne MV Ambalangoda emerged as the Dialog 4G-the Sunday Times Schoolboy Cricketer and Lasith Croosepulle of Maris Stella College Negombo won the Dialog 4G-the Sunday Times Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year.
