The children of Qatar's Bravo Cricket Academy with coaches during a training session.
Doha: Qatar’s Bravo Cricket Academy (BCA) and Rohit Sharma’s CricKingdom Cricket Academy will be working together in spotting and nurturing talent, officials of BCA said here yesterday.
The BCA, started in June 2017, is based in Ezdan Oasis and children from age five to 16 undergo training at the centre on all week days under qualified coaches.
“We are proud and privileged to announce our academy’s association with the Hit Man of world cricket Rohit sharma. Our academy will be joining hands with the best in cricket to bring about the best cricket development in Qatar,” says Christopher, who is a qualified Level ‘1’ cricket coach. With over two decades of playing domestic cricket in India, Oman, and Qatar, Christopher’s passion and love for the game, led to the birth of Bravo Cricket Club.
The move to tie up with the successful Indian cricketer has been a shot in the arm for the trainees. CricKingdom operates in six centres in India and one overseas venture in Singapore.
With the tie-up in Qatar, it will be CricKingdom’s second centre outside India and a third overseas centre is to come up in Frankfurt, Germany.
Rohit Sharma’s brother Vishal Sharma will be here on March 18 along with Parag Dahiwal and Chetan Suryawanshi, CEO of the CricKingdom to officially announce their first tie-up in the Middle East.
“Our main aim is to make cricket available for everyone. We are fully focussed on cricket and we are a full-time cricket academy and aiming on the development of players,” said Christopher.
“We encourage more and more people to come and play. We promote a lot of cricket like box cricket,” he added.
Bravo Cricket Academy was founded with the aim of creating opportunities for young talents, identifying their talent and nurturing them with all their coaching needs and transforming them to be better cricket players.
Christopher said the facility at the Bravo Cricket Academy is not restricted to children training but for cricket lovers of all ages to come to have a knock at the nets or roll their arm over.
“We have some flexible timing. We operate in two shifts: morning session from 6am to 10am and from 5pm to 11pm in the evening session. So anyone of all ages who wants to play or train are welcomed to enroll and carry forward their passion for the game in Qatar. We have a platform which they can use to either get fit or continue with their favourite game,” added Christopher, who played first class cricket in India. “We also have two senior teams which play in the Qatar Cricket Association League. One team in B Division while the second one is in C Division,” added Christopher.
Christopher holds the honour to have completed his Level ‘1’ Cricket Coach Education Course from the prestigious ICC Academy.and besides him five other coaches train the 80-odd students at the academy.
He has also attended the Level ‘0’ Course for coaches in Oman and the Level ‘0’ umpiring course conducted by the Qatar Cricket Association.
BCA is the first full-time cricket academy in Qatar. The facility includes four spacious nets so players can try and learn all the shots in the book as well as spacious fielding and catching area and an open gym.
