KalingaTimes correspondent
Cuttack (Orissa), April 21: Former India speedster and ICC match referee Javagal Srinath was all praise for young Oriya talents who have taken cricket very seriously.

Joining as chief guest at a final match of school cricket tournament here on Monday, Srinath acknowledged the contributions of Debashis Mohanty and Shiv Sundar Das in national team and hoped that many cricketers from the state would repeat the feats of Mohanty and Das in future.

“I would like to see many more cricketers from Orissa to do their duty for the country,” Srinath said amid thunderous applause from the crowd.

Calling upon the students to be more professional, he asked them to take cricket more seriously and make a career out of it, as cricket is now getting popular worldwide.

But at the same time, the international cricketer who himself is an engineer cautioned the students not to neglect their studies. “There is no alternative to education. Draw inspirations from education to do better in cricket and vice versa,” he suggested.

Praising the local Union Sporting Club that organised the inter-school cricket tournament regularly for last five years, Srinath said: "These types of tournaments are platforms for right kind of exposure to right talents".

Later speaking to newsmen, Srinath said the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) is going to be a huge success and the Twenty20 format of the game would draw huge fans across the world.

He ruled out the possibility that IPL would disturb any routine international tour of ICC. On his role as ICC match referee, the former international said he is enjoying his new assignment.

Earlier in the day, the Ranihat high school boys won the PVR Murthy inter-school championship title by beating Jobra Municipal High School by 42 runs.

Helped by a fine half century by middle order batsman Mohammed Akram (58 runs) who also accounted for four crucial wickets of Jobra team by giving only 26 runs, the Ranihat team won the title for the first time.

Put to bat first, the winners scored 168 runs for the loss of seven wickets in their allotted 25 overs. Needing to score at 6.76 runs per over for a win, the Jobra boys were all out in 22.4 overs with only 126 runs on the board.

For his magnificent performance with bat and ball, Akram was declared man-of-the-match. Akram also took away the man-of-the-match award for his overall performance in the tournament.

Akram scored 254 runs in all the five matches he played and took 23 wickets to become the undisputed claimant for the titles.