Suresh Raina thanks Kiccha Sudeep for a superb KCC outing; raring to return for next season

The third edition of the Kannada Chalanachitra Cup, which took place over February 24 and 25 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, was a stupendous success, with the organizers clocking record ticket sales that trumped the earlier two seasons of the tournament. Superstar Kiccha Sudeep, who was at the helm of affairs in arranging the event, got pretty much everyone, except Darshan, Yash and the Shettys – Rakshit, Rishab and Raj – to set aside time to practice and devote two full days to play the tournament, which was quite the feat.

One of the special features of KCC is that each team is allowed to have one international player on their side, for which, former big-ticket players are brought in. While the second season had Virendra Sehwag, Herschelle Gibbs, Tilakaratne Dilshan, Adam Gilchrist, Owais Sha and Lance Klusner, this time around, it was the turn of Chris Gayle, Brian Lara, Suresh Raina, Badrinath, with returning players Gibbs and Dilshan.

In his KCC debut, Raina was part of the Ganga Warriors that had Daali Dhananjaya as the face of the team and Darling Krishna as captain. Back at one of his favourite hunting grounds, the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Raina had a gala time playing the tournament, helping his team not only get to the finale, but win it too. After the event, he took to social media to write Sudeep a note of gratitude. He wrote, “Had a great time playing at #chinaswamystadium again, brings back so many wonderful memories. Thank you #KCC @kichchasudeepa bhai, it was superbly organised and looking forward to the next season.”

KCC is currently played over two days with each team getting two qualifying T-10 matches and the finalists decided either by number of wins or net run rate. Going forward, Sudeep wants to extend the duration of the tournament by a couple of days to make it a more rounded affair, with everyone playing each other and then deciding the best two teams for the finale.