RIYADH — The South Village Warriors, representing Camp BACS, emerged champion of the MoneyGram Cricket Ke Badshah 2016 Tournament when the exciting four-week competition concluded at the Al-Seif Camp Cricket Ground here recently.
In the final, South Village Warriors defeated Selicon XI by 35 runs.
Former Indian cricket player Irfan Pathan attended the final and distributed the awards.
Top four teams from BACS, Saudi Oger and Al Seif camps fought it out for the honors.
Irfan said: “It was a huge honor to be invited by MoneyGram as an ambassador for the MoneyGram Cricket Ke Badshah Tournament. I’m happy to see how this competition is supporting the development of cricket in Saudi Arabia by giving all people of labor camps an exciting opportunity to participate in a formal competition. I look forward to seeing how it develops in the Kingdom.”
“We are proud to have launched the first professional cricket competition in the labor camps. The four-week tournament had been truly remarkable with the participation of over 5,000 players and supporters,” said Maher Haddad, MoneyGram’s Senior Regional Director, Middle East, Pakistan & Afghanistan.
In the semifinals, South Village Warriors from BACS Camp easily defeated the BACS XI, while the other semis saw a tight match with the home team from Al-Seif taking on the Saudi Oger’s Selicon XI. In the most exciting game of the competition it came down to the last ball with Selicon needing 4 runs to win. It finished it in style blasting a huge six.
South Village Warriors set a daunting target of 119 for Celicon, which in turn managed only 84. The South Village Warriors bowled extremely tight line throughout.
“We are so proud to be champions and we are also grateful to MoneyGram for bringing such a great tournament to our camps. It was an honor to receive the trophy from Irfan Pathan and we look forward to defending our title next year,” said the winning team captain, Pankaj P. Gawande.
This tournament compliments MoneyGram’s association with the International Cricket Council (ICC) where MoneyGram had extended its sponsorship with the ICC for an additional eight years. MoneyGram is the only ICC sponsor to promote cricket in Saudi Arabia and support labor camps.
