India wins Street Child Cricket World Cup at Lord's

In a buildup to the showpiece event in the United Kingdom, India claimed a very unique Street Child Cricket World Cup at the Lord's on Tuesday. Team South India got the better of England in the final of the competition which was organised by Street Child United in the United Kingdom.

The team mainly consisted of players from the streets of Mumbai and Chennai lost just one match throughout the entire first round, the league and defeated England by a narrow margin in the penultimate match.

The funding for the travels and guidance were provided by an NGO called Magic Bus. It was obvious that they were not in a position to cater the expenses for the World Cup, so a bit of borrowing was required, as reported by Paul Sundar Singh, the founder of Karunalaya, an NGO taking care of children living on the streets. The format of the Street Child Cricket World Cup involved six-member teams playing off against each other in a twenty-ball match. The squad consisted of eight members, with equal representations of boys and girls aged between 14 and 17. The teams participating in the tournament were Bangladesh, England, Congo, Mauritius, Nepal, West Indies and Tanzania. While India was represented by two teams - India North and South India. The India North unit was represented by children of Hope Foundation and Save the Children India. The victorious team was captained by V.Paulraj of Chennai and was assisted by vice-captain Mani Ratnam of Mumbai. The others in the team were A. Nagalakshmi, B. Monisha, K. Suryaprakash and Bhavani Veerakannu (Mohammed Irfan and Shama Moaaz Siddiqui were the substitutes). The charitable organisation behind the tournament, Street Child United has been working for over a decade now to use the power of sports to bring about a change in the treatment of street-connected children around the globe.