Time for Cube cricket in the city

CHENNAI: Come, celebrate, cricket. This is the essence of C Cube, a special coaching facility for city folk at Guindy.
A unique indoor academy, formally opened on Wednesday by spin legend Muttiah Muralitahran, C Cube will cater to the needs and aspirations of all cricket lovers who want to enjoy the facilities professional players have.
"In Sri Lanka, it rains a lot and so we had many indoor academies since 1990s," said Muralitharan, the brand ambassador of C Cube."Chennai is a big city and I think it needs many such facilities to spread the game."
C Cube, with five indoor pitches side by side with bowling machines, is open to people of all ages and, unlike the professional academies in the city, functions on the lines of a club. The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association has indoor training facilities as do many of the academies run by celebrated cricketers. But the USP of C Cube is its flexibility, its appeal to people from all walks of life who want to feel they are playing at the top level for a fee.
Says S Balachandhran, CEO, "This academy will at once cater to professionals and amateurs. Anyone from 10 to 80 can come here and train paying a nominal fee which can be for a session, for a day, month or even life." Balachandhran quickly added that the theme centre puruses the dream of every cricket lover.
Murali, for whom Chennai is like second home as he is married into a family from the city, said he hoped to come to the academy whene he had an "off-day". Former Indian coach and New Zealand opener John Wright is consultant coach while Sridharan Sriram, former TN Ranji player, is the head coach.
"Usually, bowling machines are placed outdoor (in actual match situations) in academies," says VB Chandrasekhar, a former Indian opener who runs a popular cricket academy on the outskirts of the city. "It is difficult to have space for an indoor academy in the city and lighting is another constraint," he added.
This is what distinguishes C Cube from the common academies. As its CEO says, it works on the "rent a net" theme with weather proof facilities and where people get trained in professionally managed coaching programmes at different skill levels. C Cube also contains snooker and table tennis facilities and a full-fledged sports equipment store.
The World Cup celebrations have hardly died down, and it is time for Cube action.