Senior Oman Cricket official bids adieu

SALALAH: Oman Cricket held a ceremony to bid Anil Kumar, Secretary, OC Salalah, adieu as his five-year tenure with the game’s governing body came to an end after his decision to leave Oman for good.

Anil had been instrumental in promoting the game of cricket in Salalah since 2016 when Oman Cricket decided to form its team in the Dhofar capital. Commenting on his association with Oman Cricket, OC Secretary Madhu Jesrani said Anil was a vital part of Salalah cricket and made immense contribution to the game’s promotion over there.

“We started our operations in Salalah back in 2016 and he played a key role in helping Oman Cricket hold its first league tournament there. It will be hard to find such a committed official again and we are going to miss him. Oman Cricket wishes him the very best in his future endeavours,” Jesrani added.

Jesrani said Oman Cricket will continue its operations in Salalah as it was an important region for them. Anil said he was happy to have served Oman Cricket to the best of his ability.

“Though cricket was played in Salalah even in 1980s I had the honour to be a part of the founding members of the body that worked under Oman Cricket in Salalah," he added.

“In the very first season we had 24 teams participating in the four divisions of the tournament. We conducted four seasons of league and knockout tournaments and the number of teams increased to 28. Standard of cricket in Salalah has improved tremendously and competition is growing among teams. A Division started with 30-over games and were scheduled to play 40-over tournament.

Unfortunately, we could not conduct our fifth season due to Covid-19 restrictions,” explained Anil.

He said umpiring standard had also improved in Salalah and the number of umpires was also on the rise. A R Srinivasan, Oman Cricket’s Umpires Educator, conducted two Level-0 courses in the last four years.

“We had no qualified umpired when Oman Cricket started the first tournament in 2016 but now we have as many as 26 Level 0 qualified match officials, ten of whom were scheduled to attend a level-1 umpiring course which again was cancelled due to Covid-19 situation in the region. I was happy to have been instrumental in coordinating the umpiring courses twice in four years,” he added.