MAQ plans to make US Open Cricket more attractive Liaqat Ali miami – Miami hosted the US Open Cricket 2014 which was won by US Tigers on Sunday. It was a fun-filled, high octane four day extravaganza - richest and largest T20 event played in North America. Thirty teams featuring players from Pakistan, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, England, Caribbean and took part in the tournament which had prize money of $100,000. The force behind the successful organisation of the tournament is Mahammad MAQ Qureshi. MAQ himself a player who represented Karachi at U-19 level, migrated from Pakistan to US in 1984. He missed playing cricket for some years and he decided to plunge into the affairs of the game and introduced T20 cricket in 1999. The prize money for the first tournament was $5000. He faced a lot of criticism and was accused of destroying the game by introducing T20 format. He proved his critics wrong as this is the most popular form of cricket these days because it takes less time and provides a lot of entertainment. While talking to Khaleej Times exclusively MAQ said: “Our efforts and hard work are paying dividends as lots of teams want to participate in this tournament. “Over 145 teams applied to take part in the tournament but due to the lack of playing fields we selected only 32. We are planning to increase clay pitches from three to 10 next year. “A quality cricket was played over four (Dec 4-7) and best team (US Tigers) went away with top honours.” MAQ added: “There are plans afoot to make this tournament more attractive from next year. We are going to increase prize money and team finishing 8th will get $1000 next year. The next edition will be held from December (3-6) in 2015.” MAQ said: “We want to develop the game in the region because cricket has got a huge following among the expats in North America.” This type of tournaments will be a boon for cricket in the region. “Most of the players in the region took part in this tournament and Canada was planning to hold trials to select the team. Coach Mukesh Narula was here and watched all the players in the tournament. They have cancelled the trials and will pick the team on the basis of the performance in this tournament,” MAQ said.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 02:45:40 +0000
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