The Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals strengthened their association with Red Bull in India and continue to scout talent from the annual T20 tournament for college cricket teams- Red Bull Campus Cricket.
Red Bull Campus Cricket (RBCC) has been working in India across 32 cities with city qualifiers from February 17. This initiative is to discover and nurture budding cricketers from college campuses.
Last year, the RBCC national finals took place at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow following the COVID-19 protocols. Eight of the best cricket universities in the country played to become the Red Bull Campus Cricket National Finals winner.
DAV College Jalandhar emerged victoriously and was crowned the Red Bull Campus Cricket national finals winners against Subodh College Jaipur. Tamil Nadu batsman Shahrukh Khan is a recent success story from Red Bull Campus Cricket. He was picked up by Punjab Kings for Rs 5.25 crore at the recently concluded IPL auction.
Shahrukh Khan was the man of the tournament as he led Hindustan College from Chennai to the finals of Red Bull Campus Cricket 2019. He got selected for RBCC player tryouts with Rajasthan Royals at the Institute of Sports, Nagpur in the first week of December 2019. "I wanted to win the tournament for my team but we, unfortunately, lost it. How I saw it was this would be a chance for me, if I did well there, I would have a chance to get picked. Rajasthan Royals had called me for a trial after watching me play at Red Bull Campus Cricket. It was a very good experience for me," said Shahrukh in an interaction mentioned by The New Indian Express.
Past winners from India that have represented the country at the World Championships are Rizvi College, Mumbai; DAV College, Chandigarh; Swami Shraddhanand College, Delhi and MMC College, Pune.
KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Lungi Ngidi, Niroshan Dickwella, and Chirag Suri are the players who made a reputation for themselves in international cricket for their respective countries on the Red Bull Campus Cricket platform. KL Rahul, Manan Vohra, Shardul Thakur, Karun Nair, Shashank Singh, Siddhesh Lad, Himanshu Rana, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Anukul Roy, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Ricky Bhui have also reaped the benefits of Red Bull Campus Cricket.
The women's competition will also take place in four zones -- north, south, east, and west. The winners will go on to play in the national finals. The winner of the