By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Veteran Coach and former Indian all-rounder Ravi Shastri has all his praise for leading Odia Industrialist, Mining Giant, MGM Mineral Ltd CMD and OCA Vice President, Mr Pankaj Lochan Mohanty for his unflinching commitment to promote cricket at grass root level and tapping rural talents in the State of Odisha.
Ravi Shastri was speaking at a MoU signing event in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, where MGM Minerals Ltd run MGM School of Sports signed a MoU with Coaching Beyond, cricket coaching institutions, founded by Coach Shastri, B Arun and R. Sridhar, former Team India coaches.
While praising MGM Group and its CMD Shastri said Mr Pankaj Lochan Mohanty is there to support cricket in Odisha and we will take him all across the country. “I am sure that MGM School of Sports is going to produce International standard Cricket players from Odisha in the next decade,” Shastri said.
The former Indian Cricket Team coach, said that the collaboration between MGM Group and Coaching Beyond will provide the best coaching and other facilities to create international standard players from the MGM School of Sports.
“I am sure that this School is going to the best coaching facility in the Country in the coming days,” he said. ‘Even though, we have coaching schools in Hyderabad and Chennai. But we don’t have such a wonderful and large facility anywhere. Odisha MGM School of Sports is going to be the size of the cake,” he said.
The MGM CMD Mt Mohanty expressed his confidence and believes that this collaboration will augur well for the future of Odisha cricket and go on to become one of the most coveted cricket training centres in the world.
As per the MoU, Coaching Beyond will be the knowledge & technical partner for this venture of MGM School of Sports to facilitate and execute high quality coaching programs with the aim to bring the world’s best practices to the heart of Odisha, said MGM CMD Mr Mohanty.
It may be noted here that MGM Group has set up MGM School of Sports, Centre of Excellence for Cricket at Kapursingh, Gurudijhatia in Athagarh Subdivision of Cuttack District, 30 kms from Bhubaneswar.
This School has been made to fulfil the vision of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s vision to make the State as Sports hub. The total project cost is around Rs 40 Crore. The newly inaugurated Center of Excellence for Cricket was designed to accommodate 100 players for cricket and other sports apart from other supporting staffs. In fact priorities were being given to players from Odisha. The land area for the project is 30 Acres.
