Judges, advocates to be locked in different ball game

The match is scheduled to be held from 9 am to 1 pm with the judges and advocates practising for it rigorously during the past two weeks. While for many it is nostalgic in terms of their younger days on the field, the organisers have ensured that since all most all judges are above the 50-year mark barring a couple of them, who are in their late forties, care has been taken to ensure that a level playing field emerges with senior advocates being roped into the Advocate General’s team.

However, many point out that the enthusiasm shown by the judges has been so overwhelming that many have been coming regularly for net practice early in the mornings since Christmas holidays. While the Chief Justice Indira Banerjee will be the non-playing captain for the 16-member judges team, Advocate General Vijay Narayan will be the non-playing captain for the 16-member advocates team.

However, instead of 11 players playing in the regular cricket match, this match will see 14 players playing it.

The high court judges team being led by Justice S Manikumar is expected to comprise Justices S Manikumar, N Kirubakaran, M Venugopal, Abdul Quddhose, MM Sundresh, S Vaidyanathan, MS Ramesh, CV Karthikeyan, G Jayachandran, M Dhandapani, V Bharathidasan, N Sathish Kumar, Rajiv Shakdher, M Govindaraj, D Krishnakumar and Pushpa Sathyanarayana.

The advocate general’s team is said to consist of C Manishankar, V Ramesh, G Mohana Krishnan, K Hariharan, MS Krishnan, CA Thiyagarajan, S Parthasarathy, ARL Sundresan, R Raghavachari, VT Balaji, TN Rajagopalan, PS Raman, G Thilagavathi, Venkatesan, Karthikeyan and Aravind Subramanian.

Advocate General Vijay Narayan told DTNext, “This match is being organised for the very first time in Madras. Similar matches take place between Supreme Court Judges and Lawyers in New Delhi.

There is a rolling trophy and I hope that this will become an annual tradition. It is purely a friendly match and is organised on the 20 over format with modifications so as to allow maximum participation.” While K Srikanth, former India captain and former chairman board of selectors of Indian cricket team, is the chief guest and will distribute the prizes, expectations are high over advocates and judges locking horns not in terms of arguments and case bundles, but in handling the bat and ball.