NCCA Recognizes Captain America Saurabh Netravalkar

The Northern California Cricket Association (NCCA) hosted a community event in the heart of Silicon Valley in California to felicitate Captain America, Saurabh Netravalkar and the recently selected USA U19 players from the Bay area. The NCCA established in 1892 is one of the most vibrant cricketing entities in the USA and welcomed the recent success of the USA men’s senior team and is fully supportive of the USA Under-19 squad.

NCCA President Biju Nair shared the success story of USA Cricket and the contributions of NCCA players during his welcome address. This was followed by a panel discussion with Sunnyvale City Mayor Larry Klein, Sunnyvale Vice Mayor Russ Melton, Dublin City Council Member Arun Goel, Santa Clara City Council Member Raj Chahal, Saratoga Council Member Rishi Kumar and USA Cricket Board member Suraj Viswanathan in attendance. The panel discussion moderated by Mr. Nair revealed that city leaders were excited about the progress and the traction made by USA Cricket. The NCCA community applauded the commitment of all the city leaders and USA Cricket in enabling the cricket infrastructure in the Bay Area. The panelists shared their experiences on how a community can help generate a movement to build sports infrastructure and dedicated cricket fields locally. USA Cricket Board member Suraj Viswanathan updated the community on plans to start a professional cricket league and plans to build various turf facilities across the country.

NCCA Board Chairman Anuj Patel and Board member Barinder Ahluwalia recognized USA Men’s cricket team captain Saurabh Netravalkar and USA Under-19 players from the NCCA, Rahul Jariwala, Sakthi Karimanal, Shashank Vittaladevaram, Sohan Bhat, and Vatsal Vaghela. USA Cricket shared the certificates of recognition for all the aforementioned players and City leaders.

NCCA President Mr. Nair announced a $500 cash award to each of the selected Under-19 players from the NCCA towards buying cricket gear, and promised the possibility of other scholarship and cash awards based on the performance of the players during the upcoming international Under-19 games.

NCCA applauded the USA women national players from the Bay Area and congratulated them on their success in the ongoing ICC World Cup Qualification Tournament in Florida.

This recognition event arranged by the to bring together the community to talk about cricket and to inspire the youth to continue doing better for USA cricket was appreciated by the community during the panel discussions. The community recognized the NCCA gesture as a positive change towards unifying various cricketing efforts in Northern California.

USA Cricket recognized various adult leagues including NCCA and BACA for their contributions to the local and national cricket development. The NCCA Youth league got the special recognition award for unifying all youth efforts into a single neutral platform to help compete in an organized way. The NCCA youth league is in the final weeks of the Second Edition and playoffs will take place during this fall.

There was a strong presence from all NCCA Premier league clubs and from various youth academies like CCA, CZA, DSCA, DCL, EYCA, SRCA, MCCA, CFC, and the VK cricket Academy. USA Cricket also recognized each of these academies for their contribution to the grass root level development of cricket in Northern California.

NCCA President Mr. Nair shared the view of building a focused approach in the northern California area to secure good cricket facilities and pleaded to City leaders for their support toward this movement. He also mentioned that the northern California cricketing community celebrated the success of USA Cricket and the success of NCCA players during this event, and noted it was the first attempt towards building a strong player pipeline towards national team selection across the board.