Mobil cup winners feted at ceremony

Nucaf Tellicherry skipper CTK Mashood was delighted to receive the 9th Mobil Cup Champions trophy from S. Gunna, General manager of EMA Lubricants, the sponsors of this tournament, at the Awards ceremony conducted by Dubai Cricket Council (DCC) in Dubai. A total of 24 teams participated in this tournament which started in February 2011 and culminated last month with Nucaf Tellicherry one of the Premier sides in this country beating Seven Seas Strikers by seven wickets in an exciting final at the Sevens cricket ground. Syed Maqsood with a knock of 82 runs and skipper CTK Mashood with three wickets were the architects of their win in the finals. Before the presentation, S. Gunna thanked DCC for conducting the tournament in a highly successful and professional manner. \"Mobil Oil has always been in the fore-front of sposts activities and we support a lot of sports. We are very happy to be supporting this game of cricket and when DCC could not hold this tournament for some 5 or 6 years we were quite disappointed. We are very happy to see this tournament being played again and we want to build on it to make it better for all the participants. Mohamed Lokhandwala has been speaking to us to make it a tournament which may be played on grass ground next year and we are looking into the possibility,\" he said. DCC Honorary secretary Mohamed Lokhandwala said: \"We are highly thankful to our long-time sponsors EMA Lubricants for their fantastic support to DCC over the years and specially for supporting us when we re-started our cricket after a gap of 6 years and were badly in need of some sponsorship to start our activities. This tournament was instituted some fifteen years back by our former secretary Hayat Yar Khan and we are happy to see it grow over the years and hope we can raise its profile by conducting this next year on grass wickets.\" CTK Mashood complimented DCC and said: \"We enjoy playing in this tournament over the years as it is very well conducted and more so as it is the only 25-over tournament in this country today and gives the players some more opportunities to perform. This is our third win this year as we won the Piri Piri Cup, the KPL Tournament with almost the same players and now the Mobil Cup and we hope to win some more.\"