Ruchi Indian Cuisine, Folsom, CA and Telugu Association of North America (TANA) joined hands to sponsor Ruchi cricket Cup 2010 at the Theodore Judah grounds in Folsom on Sunday August 8th. This six-a-side charity cricket tournament staged under the auspices of the Folsom Cricket Club and ably supported by Ruchi Indian Cuisine and TANA raised money for Sankara Eye Foundation.A total of $700raised from this event was donated to Sankara Eye Foundation. The event itself mobilized over $500 and the Folsom Cricket Club committed $200 out of their prize money taking the total contribution to $700.
I am happy to be part of this noble causes stated Srinivas Sangani, President of Folsom Cricket Club. He commended the efforts of Ruchi Indian Cuisine co-owners Rama Komati and Natarajan Gutta and TANA Sport committee Chair Ramesh Mandalapu in successfully organizing the Ruchi Cricket Cup charity tournament for the benefit of Sankara Eye Foundation. For the last six years, the Sankara Eye Foundation (SEF), USA has raised funds to construct four super specialty eye care institutions across India in Guntur, Bangalore, Shimoga and Anand.Today, Sankara Eye Care Institutions (SECI) manages 8 hospitals providing 99% success rate for cataract surgeries. The mission of SEF and SECI is to eradicate curable blindness all over India by the year 2020 and to provide completely free of charge quality eye care to the rural poor with a goal of 1 million free eye surgeries per year by year 2020
A total of 18 teams from near and far (Intel, EDS, SCA, couple from bay area and others) competed for the Ruchi Cricket Cup with Great Spirit and enthusiasm. This day long tournament witnessed some great cricket from Bradshaw Cricket club teams BDSCC1 and BDSCC2 and Folsom Cricket Club Teams Master Blasters and Spartans. Staving off competition these four teams reached semi finals.
BDSCC2 battled against Spartans in the first semi final and BDSCC1 battled against Master Blasters in the second semi final. Thanks to a quickfire 30 runs from Venu Bojja, Spartans and some brilliant batting from Sanjeev Singh, Master Blasters they guided their respective teams to the Finals. Both the semifinals are nail biting coming to the last ball to decide. The FCC team Spartans won the cup by beating their fellow team Master Blasters. Chasing a total of 49 runs, Spartans won by an over to spare in the 5-over match.
The event concluded with the award ceremony decorated by distinguished guest list Anil Mandava, President of Telugu Association of Greater Sacramento, Kumar Kalagara, a versatile community leader representing California Telugu Samathi, Ramesh Mandalapu, Chair of TANA sports committee and the sponsors of the event Ruchi Indian Cuisine co-owners Rama Komati and Natarajan Gutta.The awards ceremony was hosted by Ramesh Chellapilla, Secretary of Folsom Cricket Club. Venu Gopal Bojja was recognized with an MOM (Man of the match) for his brilliant knock of 30 runs in the first semi final. Kumar Kalagara took the honor of presenting the MOM award to him. Sanjeev Singh earned both the MOM awards for the final and the second semi-final matches.
He received a rousing applause from the crowd while receiving the awards from Anil Mandava, TAGS President. Kumar Kalagara presented trophy to Sunny Dhani from BDSCC, who displayed good agility in the field, good bowling and batting through out the tournament, as the overall tournament MVP. Natarajan Gutta presented the Runners-up cup and a $ 200 check to Master Blasters captain Praveen Kumar Nadella while Ramesh Mandalapu took the honor of presenting the Ruchi Cricket Cup and $400 check to the winner’s team Spartans captain Venkat Raja.