It was yet another historic day wherein The Executive Committee of The Poona Hoteliers Association (PHA) successfully effectuated the 5th Edition of its Premiere League Cricket Tournament at the Azam Campus Grounds on 18th March’23.
The 5-day Tournament was ceremoniously inaugurated on 14th March’23 by Rahul Singh former Indian Olympic Hockey player in the gracious presence of P. A Inamdar, Chairman of Haji Gulam Mohammad Azam Education Trust.
It was a colourful spectacle, full of enthusiasm, excitement, vigour, zest & zeal with an all-time high participation of 36 Teams from various Hotels and Hotel Management Institutes rearing to enter the field and display their cricketing talent.
The Ground had a strength of over 1000 super excited spectators from the Hospitality Fraternity in a sporty mood, all set to cheer their respective teams to victory. The tournament was live-streamed on YouTube which gathered a strong traction of over 15k viewership of hoteliers & their families and friends also the tournament was made live on Screens across various hotels in Pune City.
Amit Sharma, President -Poona Hoteliers Association, and the entire PHAPL 5.0 Organising Committee had the following common inaugural message for all present “Let this prestigious n popular Cricket Tournament be the start of many such sports n related activities & let the best team win wherein Rahul Singh aptly mentioned to “ Play Tough but not Rough” The dignitaries further encouraged the Teams to “Play Well, Play Hard but Play Fair”.
This Tournament post-pandemic has evolved to another high and for the first time Live Screening of all 52 matches over 5 days was successfully televised. Like any other International Cricketing action here too, complete match scores & related analysis was professionally executed.
The viewership from 1000 on-field spectators went up in multiples touching a number of over 15000 with colleagues at work and families at home joining in the action. Even rain and thunder could not dampen the spirits of the participating teams and the Director of the Tournament, Manu and the Groundsmen Parmeshwar did a fabulous job in maintaining the continuity of the League.
For the first time in the Premier League’s history of 5 years, we had a new Winner wherein the IIHM, Pune lifted the much-coveted Trophy defeating Hyatt Regency, Pune who were, in turn, the Runners-up. Corinthians Club & Resorts and Sayaji Hotel were the other two teams to reach the Top Four.
- Man of the Series was awarded to Laxman Dandale of The Corinthians Club & Resorts.
- Best Batsman of the Tournament to Harshvardhan Satav of IIHM,
- Best Bowler of the Tournament to Aryan Pawar of IIHM and
- The Man of the Match for the Finals was won by Wakar Khan from IIHM.
After 4 extremely successful Inter Hotel Cricket Tournaments, PHAPL 5.0 was the 5th in the series of this extremely popular and the most sought-after sporting action amongst the Pune Hospitality Fraternity, and the credit for its Super Success goes to the following PHAPL 5.0 Cricket Tournament Organising Committee Members – Amit Sharma, Sharan Shetty, Prapti Deshpande, Sumit Sharma, Vinay Nair, Anurag Raha, Sandeep Singh, Biswajit Biswas, Pankaj Saxena, Sanjay Singh, Nilesh Gajare & Bhushan Kumud. In addition to the above Arun Nayyar, Shrinivas Chaphalkar, C R Vinoj & Vaibhav Lamba were also involved and present for the inaugural and closing ceremony of the PHAPL 5.0.
The Poona Hoteliers Association Executive Committee is all excited and geared up to take PHAPL 6.0 2024 to even greater heights. The tournament is getting bigger and better every year,
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