CHANDIGARH: More than 540 teams, including 30 in Punjab, will take part in the Inter-School Cricket Tournament for boys Under-17 to be played in Punjab, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabd, Mumbai and Delhi from September to November this year.

The Punjab Inter-School Tournament will be played in two phases from November 14 to 29. Talking to mediapersons at the PCA Stadium here today, PCA secretary MP Pandove and P N Shankaran of Procam International said that in the first phase the district level matches will be at Patiala, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Chandigarh and Mohali from November 14
to 20.

The winners of each participating district then come to Mohali to play the final among them. The matches will be played at the PCA Stadium and in Chandigarh from November 23 to 29. The six teams would be split into two pools and they play on a league basis and the winners and runners-up will play cris-cross semi-finals and final. The winners team will then qualify for the All-India Parle Cup. DAV Senior Secondary School, Sector 8 Chandigarh are last year's runners-up while Rizvi School of Mumbai are the defending champions.

Pandove promised that the Punjab School cricket tournament would be extended to the other districts from the next year. The Parle Cup introduced in 2000  is played in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Punjab and Delhi.

Shankaran said that six winners who play in the final at Mohali/Chandigarh the promoters will provide the following facilities: 1 Lunch to players and officials. 2 Man of the match awards. 3 Cash awards to the winners and runners-up. 4 T-shits and caps to all players. 5 Trousers to both finalists. 6 Special prizes to all semi-finalists and 6 umpires shirts and caps. Pandove said that the PCA would take appropriate steps to check the menace of fielding overaged players.