Over 833 games will be played

The second round of Sri Lanka’s premier schools cricket tournament, the ‘Dialog Youth 19 Trophy’ powered by Dialog Axiata PLC will start on March 10, 2012 in Colombo. This year’s limited over tournament will attract over 220 teams making it one of the largest cricketing events held in the country.

32 of the 223 teams participating in the tournament will qualify for the second round.

The semi-finals will be worked out in March, while the grand finals will be played in April.

Captains of some of the particpating teams

The top 32 teams of the championship will battle it out for the ‘Dialog Youth 19 Trophy’ Schools Tournament, in coloured clothing and white ball for the ‘Youth 19 Dialog Trophy’.

The tournament is organized by the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association in partnership with Masscom (Pvt) Limited, the event management company that exclusively promotes and develops schools cricket tournaments throughout the island.

“We are very appreciative of the opportunity granted to us by the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association and Masscom, to be a partner in this prestigious tournament which will no doubt be a platform for the identification and development of emerging talent,” said Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, Group Chief Executive Officer, Dialog Axiata PLC.

In addition to the 50/50 limited over’s tournament, the top 16 teams of the league will also be invited to play a T20 tournament in a new draw to make schools cricket exciting and draw in crowds. The finals of the T20 tournament will be played on April 8, 2012.

The ‘Dialog Youth 19 Schools Cricket’ is expected to open up a plethora of opportunities for young talent who have displayed outstanding cricketing skills of all forms of the game at a very young age.

“T20 Cricket was dawn of a new era in world cricket and Sri Lanka is no exception to the hype, “Thilanga Sumathipala, Founder of Masscom (Pvt) Limited said.

“It is best that we collaborate with our Schools Cricket structure to produce the best T20 Schools cricket with a flavour of professionalism and an immaculately designed tournament structure in order to give you the best of exciting youth cricket.”

Dialog Axiata is Sri Lanka’s largest mobile service provider with the greatest number of subscribers and a growing base of over 2,000 GSM and 1,200 3G base stations.