Sports, especially cricket, have always managed to bring people together. Whether they are the high stakes of a neighbourhood match or to get a group of CBSites take a break from their books and societies. Started in 2008, this is the 12^th edition of arguably the most celebrated tradition of CBS: the CBS Cricket League or as it is lovingly called, CCL. Organised by Parisharam, the event followed the trends in popularity of the last few years and broke its previous year’s record for the number of participants and audience. Over 14,000 members are following the event on CricHeroes, an online application for real-time scorekeeping of cricket matches, on which the tournament was hosted. According to the application, the average viewership of matches throughout the tournament was 400. A subset of this number appeared on location, cheering their teams. 

The auction of players, which took place on Jan 13^th, was just as interesting as the actual matches on the ground, giving participating players bragging rights about their auction numbers till the next big thing comes around. This year, with the highest bid price, Siddharth Agarwal from BMS first year emerged as the winner. 

With 10 teams participating, the event ran for 20 days, concluding on February 5. CBS Ni**s won the tournament beating team Aflatoon by a margin of 5 wickets. Celebrations were to follow. Nikhil, the owner of the winning team states, “We were positive about winning from the outset, although we never imagined that we will be going unbeaten in the winning streak”. Out of the 6 matches the team played, it emerged out as the winner in all of them. Although, a golden record wasn’t the only thing the team didn’t foresee. Speaking about their team name which appears to be culturally insensitive, Nikhil elaborates, “It was an inside joke between my roommate and I, who is the co-owner of the team. We never had the intention to offend any student or teacher. Although, if given a chance, we surely would like to change it now. 

 As an annual exercise, CCL has managed to bring people across all platforms together. While cricket as a religion does speak to the gully-cricket-star in many, a part of the credit goes to the organizers at Parisharam. Pulling off a 20-day event with spirits running high and at times, over-zealous supporters, it is nothing short of a managerial accomplishment. Speaking about the experience, Saurav, a member of Parisharam, says,” Somewhere we knew that we were organising the most awaited event of CBS. We were nervous before the play-off but it turned into excitement as the matches began and the event ultimately became a success, thanks to our support team at Parishram, our wonderful players and the amazing audience”.

CCL isn’t the only intra-college event organized by this group. Including Football and Volleyball tournaments, Parisharam organizes multiple championships for students to participate in, and have another event approaching called Adrenaline in the month of March. Self-described as a carnival of sports, the event will host Kabaddi, Badminton and TT among other team and individual sports.

If the continued success of CCL tells any story, it is that when we all come together, good times follow. With the status-quo of small cliques consisting of class and society members, breaks like CCL encourage us to interact and work with groups of people outside of the circle we’ve grown accustomed to. If this establishes brotherhood among people who spend a good part of three years together, it has more than solved its purpose. As Crescendo approaches, another event which crosses classroom and society boundaries, we hope to write another piece about its success in bringing us all together.