T-10 gully cricket - New 10 Over Cricket Match

After 50 overs got reduced to 20, now 10 over matches are going to create a sensation. Two teams comprising not just cricketers, but also television stars and others from the entertainment business will battle it out on the pitch in the first ever T-10 gully cricket tournament.

The announcement of the schedule was made by cricketer VVS Laxman and commentator Charu Sharma, followed by a match between the teams. The anthem for the tournament recorded by artist Kailash Kher was also released.

"The game is slowly evolving to the next stage from one-day internationals to T-20 matches and now to T-10 gully cricket. The T-10 format will incorporate unique features like power over, bat out, max zone and a tenner among others things to liven up the proceedings." said Anoop Wadhwa, promoter, Reasonable Communications, the media marketing company which initiated this tournament.

The tournament will kick off in January, 2009 at Ludhiana. With Rs 25 lakh as prize money, the winners will walk away with Rs 10 lakh and Rs 5 lakh for the runners-up. The event, to be played across eight cities will feature five sponsored teams.

The top team from each city will vie for the final pay-off in Mumbai. The exciting feature of the tournament will be that the team is allowed to select any one over known as 'max power over' and the runs scored in the over will be doubled and added to the total.

In all 40 teams battle it out for the trophy starting with the inaugural match day at Ludhiana, followed by Jalandhar, Kanpur, Lucknow, Thane, Pune and Nashik and Surat. The finale will be in Mumbai in the second week of February 2009. The final match day will feature the top four teams vying for the Grand Finale on Super Sunday.