After some rigorous training, the Indian team proved themselves at Lords, as they were crowned as the champions of Street Child Cricket World Cup.
Organized by Street Child United, over 80 marginalised children from nine countries participated in the tournament that held in the UK from 30th April to 7th May.
The main aim of the tournament is to give the children the opportunity to voice their problems and pressurise the society and government to protect their rights.
The cricket format is called street 20 cricket, where 8 member squad, having an equal number of boys and girls play 5 overs of 4 balls each.
India defeated Bangladesh in the semi-final and England in the final by five runs. Other than the trophy, the children said that the best part of the tour is that they used the same dressing room as their idols.
The Indian team comprising of four children from Mumbai and four Children from Chennai were sponsored by Karunalaya NGO.
Since most of the children participating doesn’t hold a birth certificate, it was a great struggle for the NGO to send the team to London. The funding was another problem but somehow the NGO managed to pull it off.
After the match, B. Monisha, who hails from Chennai, was quoted as saying by The Hindu, “If you respect us, you will listen to us; if you listen to us, you will protect us.”
