SVCC announces fixture of Barak Premier League; Team from Bangladesh among 13 participants

One of the biggest cricketing extravaganzas in the Northeastern region, Silchar Veteran’s Cricketers Club (SVCC) organised Barak Premier League is set to kickstart from February 6.

SVCC announced the fixtures for the 2023 edition on January 30. This is the tournament that the people of this region eagerly wait for. The high-intensity T20 matches have emerged as crowd pullers over the past few years. Teams from Barak Valley invite players from other regions to make stronger units. Cachar Express and one of the stalwarts of local Cricket Pritam Das pair with regional icons like Mani Shankar Mura Singh, making the tournament an eye-catching one.

According to the released fixture, 13 teams will participate in the 2023 edition which is called ONGC Barak Premier League. The teams participating in 2023 edition are, Moonlight Dholai who will play their first match against Blue Hills Dimahasao. The winner of this match will tussle it out against Dudhpatil Dragons for a berth in the quarter finals where Barak Bulletin Strikers awaits them. In the same pool, XI Challengers Hailakandi will play against Friends Forever Hailakandi and the winner will take on Navotius Silchar – one of the star-studded teams deemed as favourites. If sources are to be believed, Navotius Silchar will be led by Cachar express – Pritam Das. He is likely to be joined by last year’s best batter, Vivek Singh who had played from Barak Bulletin Strikers. Many other stars from India’s Domestic Cricket are set to join Das.

The second pool houses one of the top attractions of 2023, Bangladesh Tigers. Barak Premier League is crawling towards international attraction and the participation of the team from Bangladesh will only uplift the stature of the tournament. They will play against the Udharbond Transformers in their first match. The winner of this match will play against the Hailakandi CRAC Gladiators. It is worth mentioning here that Gladiators are another set of star-studded favourites of the tournament. Rumours suggest that icon of the 2021 edition, Udayan Bose will be back for the Gladiators along with his Tripura teammates, Manishankar Murasingh, Pritam Debnath among others.

Apart from these 10-teams, Silchar Lions, Gumrah White Walkers and Badarpur Royals are the other three teams participating in the tournament. Royals were the runner up last year as Deepak Khatri, Roshan Madhav and the lot drove them to the finals where they crumbled against the Pritam Das – Murasingh – Kaushik Giri onslaught. What remains to be seen is if Deepak Khatri continues to play for the Royals as he has now moved to Tripura and played a Ranji Trophy season from there along with Murasingh.

Himadri Sekhar Das is the organising secretary of Barak Premier League 2023 and SVCC is leaving no stones unturned to make this edition, bigger and better.