CHENNAI: THE trophy for the upcoming season of the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) was unveiled on Sunday. TJ Srinivasaraj, the president of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA), and other TNCA office-bearers, were part of the festivities during the unveiling function, also attended by Sekhar Samiappan, a senior representative of YouTube.
At the ceremony, Srinivasaraj revealed that preparations for the 10th season, scheduled to begin at NPR College in Dindigul on August 4, were in full swing. He also said that the fraternity is excited as the season culminates in Chepauk. "It's a great feeling for us that the TNPL will be played at Chepauk once again," he said. "The point for having all the matches in the districts was to promote cricket in districts. But at the same time, we also want the TN cricket fans in Chennai to also witness some cricket. So, this time, what we have done is, we wanted to have the second part of the matches to be hosted in Chennai. We are very excited about it."
"In fact, most of the people were insisting that we should have some matches here (Chennai). So one of the reasons why we want to have the matches here is because people wanted to watch it. Plus, also our YouTube partner was also insisting that we should have some matches in Chepauk. So these are the two reasons why we want to host it." In all, Chepauk will host the playoffs and the final apart from the last few league games. Tiruppur Tamizhans are the defending champions. Like last year, there will be eight teams battling it out.
Apart from the prominent names, Deepesh, Pranav Raghavendra, BK Kishore Shavin and VK Vineet are a few young talents to watch out for.