The T10 tennis ball tournament is a platform for grassroot talent to go from street to the stadium. Former India captain Sachin Tendulkar is part of the core committee, Ravi Shastri is mentor, while actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ram Charan, Hrithik Roshan, Suriya, and Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan are team owners
A talent hunt in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, in 2021 sowed the seeds of a private tennis ball cricket league among some eminent stakeholders of the game. Enthused by the talent on display—some of whom were eventually given an opportunity to play club cricket in Mumbai—Amol Kale, president of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), conceptualised a plan to take these cricketers from the street to the stadium. The result is the Indian Street Premier League (ISPL), a 10-over tennis ball tournament, that starts on Wednesday.
“The idea for the league came about when we took the Dharavi boys into the mainstream. We decided to have a professional format for tennis ball cricket so that these players get an opportunity to play in stadiums as well as earn something out of it. The idea is to change the socioeconomic structure of cricket,” says Kale.
A first-of-its-kind initiative, the ISPL has six teams—Majhi Mumbai, Bangalore Strikers, Srinagar Ke Veer, Chennai Singhams, Falcon Risers Hyderabad and Tiigers of Kolkata. Former India captain Sachin Tendulkar and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) treasurer Ashish Shelar are core committee members along with Kale, while Ravi Shastri, member of the 1983 World Cup-winning team, ex-India captain and coach, and now broadcaster, is mentor.
