Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Blind women cricketers from across Madhya Pradesh reached state capital to start training from Sunday, ahead of national championship for blind cricketers to be held in Bengaluru in February end.
The general secretary of Cricket Association for Blind in Madhya Pradesh, Sonu Golkar, said, We have 60 women from across the state training at the 10-day long camp at Barkatullah University sports ground. We will select 14 girls who will represent the state at the national championship to be held in Bengaluru from February 28 to March 5.
Nidhi Tiwari and Kritika Charve are training girls at the camp. Some cricketers had reached the camp on Saturday night while the rest arrived on Sunday morning.
State BJP president Vishnudutt Sharma inaugurated the camp at Barkatullah University sports ground. Sharma and the other special guests played cricket with the girls at the inauguration event.
He said, This is a ground-breaking camp that is providing visually-impaired young girls an opportunity to make a name for themselves and make their parents, state and country proud.
The team comprises 11 players and includes players from three blind categories that are B1, B2 and B3, depending on their blindness level.
B1 category players are completely blind while players in B2 category have a vision till 2 metres. The players in the B3 categories have the best vision among the team members as they can see up to 6 metres.
A team of 11 has four players from B1 category, three from B2 and four from B3. The equipment of the blind cricket too varies from regular cricket. The ball weighs 87 grams and is filled with bearings to provide audible clues to players. Golkar said the balls have been bought from Dehradun especially for the team.
Players in the camp:
Reena, Nikita, Deepika and Kavita (Betul)
Manisha, Jyoti Uike and Geeta (Seoni)
Priya and Anjali (Hoshangabad)
Jyoti Malviya, Anita, Nazia and Mona (Indore)
Pooja and Deepali (Bhopal)
Sapna, Anjali, Archana, Visakha, Kanta andBhuri (Gwalior)
Gauri, Jyoti and Rajni (Jabalpur)
Komal (Ujjain)
