Jain International Residential School visits ASA on an exposure trip for hockey and cricket.

(L)ASA team taking a penalty corner against JIRS

After a long travel up from the cool and pleasant climate in Bangalore, the Jain International Residential School (JIRS) arrived at a not so used to climate and terrain in Anantapur on the evening of the 26th June 2015. A total of 30 squad members including 14 cricket athletes, 14 Hockey athletes and their respective team coaches arrived at the Anantapur Sports Academy (ASA).

The Jain school played 3 hockey games along with a 50over and a 30over game of cricket with the ASA Junior teams. JIRS played one hockey game in the morning and one in the evening of the 27th of June and one game in the morning of the 28th June. Similarly they played their first 50-over cricket game on the 27th of June, and then played another 30-over game in the first half of the 28th of June, as they were scheduled to leave for home the same evening.

JIRS shall make another visit this upcoming weekend, however, with football on their agenda this time around.

JIRS has made this exchange visit a calendar fixture since the past four years, apart from having plans to make extended visits in the future for more sports to provide their teams the opportunity to learn and grow during their visits to the ASA.

They believe that the ASA has a vast pool of talented athletes and the JIRS athletes will only gain from more such tours here.These visits over the years have come as a boon to both the athletes and coaches JIRS as well as ASA.

JIRS sees these visits as a way to prepare their athletes for their upcoming Inter-school season, while at the same time giving the coaches the opportunity to assess the athletes towards the training that they have been imparting. The ASA coaches, on the other hand, try and field their junior athletes to play against JIRS as they gain much needed match exposure.

The ASA hockey team played their regular junior side with the intent of giving them a build up towards the upcoming hockey season, while the ASA cricket team on the other hand fielded young teams, in particular two middle order batsmen, one being Michael Jonathan who has just turned 12 this year and the other being 8 year old C. Bhargav.

JIRS and ASA Hockey boys posing for a group picture after their game

JIRS have confirmed with the ASA coaches to host one U17 International Invitation Tournament at their campus in the future and would want the ASA athletes to participate in the tournament for which they have already extended invites to the ASA teams.

Upon an invite from the JIRS last year for a cricket tournament, the ASA team visited Bangalore for the JASE Cup in April 2014 and won the tournament. After winning this tournament last year, the ASA cricket team is looking forward to visiting Bangalore again for some more silverware this time around.