CONRAD DIAS
Ranchi, Oct 11: Alpha Sports Academy, started in March 2022, is aiming to build a sports ecosystem for athletes from semi-rural areas of Bihar so that they can opt for structured sports as an alternative career.
Talking to Lagatar24.com, Sumit Prakash, the director and founder of Alpha Sports Academy, shared his story and what made him start the Academy.
“During my childhood, I always loved sports but due to the lack of proper facilities in Bihar, my parents sent me to a boarding school in Gwalior where I was also the school cricket captain. Sports has always been an integral part of my life when I was doing my graduation and PG from Delhi and Mumbai. I regularly played cricket and badminton. Sports has been a huge enabler for me to connect with people personally and professionally,” he said.
He added that when he returned to Patna in 2008 after working in Australia for 10 years, he saw that there is no proper organised sports academy which can provide structured training to budding athletes from the state. That is how he came up with the idea of opening the Alpha Sports Academy.
The academy aims to give a genuine opportunity to sportspersons from all walks of life, including the poorest of students and raise awareness about organised sports and encourage participation at the grass-root level – for girls and boys, with a residential facility.
“We intend to help build a robust eco-system for all such students so that the growth in realised potential from Bihar is tangible,” the director stated.
The academy has a 110×100 meters ground, five wickets for nets (astro, cement and three turf), a hostel, table tennis facilities, a school, an astroturf wicket and bowling machines.
Moreover, they also hosted the ‘IKF Football trials’ where 350 boys and girls (Under 15 and 17) from Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharastra, Rajasthan, UP, West Bengal, and Nepal participated. The shortlisted players, after four months, will have a chance to showcase their talent in front of professional clubs and scouts. If selected, they will have a chance to go to Europe to a professional football academy on full scholarship. This is the first time so many players from multiple states are participating in Bihar.
Apart from this, they have also organised an All Women’s Cricket League Match for which trials were held. A total of 85 players took part in the trials out of which 35 players were shortlisted and the other 25 players were directly inducted from the Bihar Cricket team which had gone to play the T20 series.
The academy will select 15 players from this camp who will be put up at the academy’s hostel for a training camp for 3 to 6 months. They will train and coach them, provide exposure to them via competitive matches, intra and inter-state and get them ready for IPL and T20 World Cup 2023.
