The Muthoot Yamaha Masters Cricket Club in the city has been making waves in the district as well as the state in the past couple of seasons. After a mediocre show for years, the club is now aiming for the skies.
In a district league featuring strong and experienced sides like the State Bank of Travancore, it was no mean feat for the youthful Masters to emerge joint winners last time around.
The force behind this resurgence has been the young crop of cricketers that Masters have managed to nurture in their backyard. Many among their ranks have gone on to represent Kerala at various age levels in the recent years helping to keep the Masters’ flag flying high in the State’s cricketing arena. A few of those names include Rejith R S and Iqlas Naha who represented the state in the under-19 category, Jithin Ramachandran who has been with the under-22 side and Ali Akbar in the under-25 side.
Abhishek Mohan who was the highest wicket taker in the country in under-25s and K Manikantan Nair who was leading run scorer in the state in two seasons are also former Masters.
“If we observe the performances of last six years, you can see the progress the team has made,” says Vinod S Kumar, president of Masters CC. “We have been up there with the best and have consistently challenged for titles in the recent times,” he says.
Apart from winning the district league, Masters reached the finals of the prestigious Pooja all-India cricket tournament last year. This year, they have already added the 19th Celestial Trophy to their trophy cabinet.
“The sponsorship from the Muthoot Pappachan group was a game-changer. Without them, we would never have found money to compete in tournaments outside the city,” says Vinod.
The financial aid from the corporate aside, it is the passion of people like Vinod, secretary K K Rajeev, Shine S S and Renji Philip that guides the Masters and its two youth sides - the Little Masters Cricket Club and the Crazy Cricket Club - for the last 29 years.
The recent results have been encouraging for Masters and the club is moving further ahead with its own training ground coming up at Adarsh Nagar near Anayara here. “We will have two nets as well as other basic facilities. With many grounds in the city unavailable at times, this will help us solve that problem now,” Vinod adds.