Hyderabad: Madrasa students come on pitch to swing the bat
Event was organised by the Dr Abdul Kalam Foundation for the students of Islamic schools who are generally deprived of such opportunities.
Hyderabad: The students of madrasas in the city had the opportunity to display their sporting skills at a two-day cricket tournament organised exclusively for them at the Quli Qutb Shah Stadium.
The event, the first of its kind, was organised by the Dr Abdul Kalam Foundation for the students of Islamic schools who are generally deprived of such opportunities.
Dr Sayeed Haroon, a member of the Foundation, said, “Our aim is to give the students of madrasas a platform to showoff their capabilities. Several students are good cricketers.”
A total of 25 teams had participated in the tournament. The Jamiatul Mominath Moghalpura team and the Jamiatul Madina Santoshnagar team made it to the finals, and the former won the tournament.
Hafiz Syed Aleem, a 16-year-old student of Jamiatul Mominath, was quite excited to be able to play as part of a team for the first time. “I play gully cricket in my neighbourhood, or at the Madrasa when there are no classes. But it was a completely different experience for us to participate in a tournament conducted exclusively for us,” he said.
Teams from Jamia Nizamia, Madrasa Rahmani, Madrasa Jamiatul Mominath and other Islamic schools located in and around the city participated in the event.
Mohd Ghulam Ather of Madrasa Jamiatul Mominath in Santoshnagar said that people tended to think that the interests of the students of Islamic schools were only restricted to the Quran, religious books, and discourses.
“If given the opportunity, we can certainly become good sportsmen too,” he said. The winning team from Madrasa Jamaitul Mominath was presented a cash award of Rs 15,000, and the runner-up team from Madrasa Jamiatul Madina received Rs 10,000.