Over the years, owing to meticulous planning and continued support by sponsors, the Edison annual dinner has become NJ's most anticipated celebration of cricket.

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Over the years, owing to meticulous planning as well as continued support by sponsors, the Edison Cricket Club annual dinner has become NJ's most anticipated celebration of cricket.   

Pic (Right): Antonia Ricigliano, Mayor of Edison Township, is honored as Chairperson of the club by Atul Huckoo - President (Left) and Srujal Parikh - VP (2nd from left).

At the club's annual gala dinner, which was held on October 30, 2010 at the Crown Plaza in Edison, NJ, attendees were unanimous in their praise of the club for its role in cricket development in the state.

In keeping with its tradition, the club honored prominent community leaders, players and supporters of the game this year. 

This year's honorees were Tunku Varadarajan (prominent journalist and former Assistant Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal) and Mukul Pandya (Editor-in-Chief of Knowledge@Wharton).  Siddharth Vaidyanathan, former Assistant Editor of CricInfo.com, was the keynote speaker at the banquet.  Edison's Mayor, Antonia Ricigliano, was honored as the Chairperson of the club.

Tunku Varadarajan, whose essay "To Lord's with Love - and a Hamper" appears in The Picador Book of Cricket, a book that is a tribute to the finest writers on the game of cricket, spoke about the importance of cricket as a cultural icon in the Indian diaspora.

"America is a great country in every respect but one," Varadarajan noted adding that the country was most welcoming but the one thing that the country lacks is cricket.  Not seeing cricket on the sports pages of newspapers was one of the things he missed dearly in USA.  He expressed hope that "America wakes up to the fact that cricketers live in their midst."

Pic (Right): Tunku Varadarajan receives a plaque from Atul Huckoo

Mukul Pandya's speech was filled with personal anecdotes about cricket. “Cricket symbolizes honesty, integrity and high moral spirits”, Pandya said in his brief speech.   He said he was pained by the news of recent times.  "The spirit of cricket needs to be restored," he observed.  Pandya, whose articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Time Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, also recited from the "Cricket Player", a poem on cricket that he wrote.

Antonia Ricigliano, Mayor of Edison Township, lauded the club’s efforts in bringing the sport closer to American people. “It is a great way to enrich our society,” she said.  Mayor Ricigliano also recalled her efforts with the bat at the cricket match that she played in summer.  Edison Councilman Dr. Sudhanshu Prasad pleaded with the mayor to support the game of cricket.  New Jersey Assemblyman and Deputy Speaker Upendra Chivukula expressed his happiness over the increasing popularity of cricket in the state due to the efforts of organizations like ECC.

Mamta Narula, a popular radio host in NJ, commended the club for the effort it takes to involve corporate sponsors.  The willingness to work with corporates is an important differentiator for this club.   Ms. Narula urged all cricket organizations to emulate ECC in this regard.

Pic (Left): Mukul Pandya, Editor-in-chief of Knowledge@Wharton, receives a plaque from Atul Huckoo.

Due to the efforts of Atul Huckoo, the President of Edison Cricket Club, the ECC initiated a number of cricketing events including T20 community cricket. He thanked the Edison Township for making its school athletic fields available for holding the games and said that the T20 tournament motivated leaders of the community to play along with the members of the club. During the year, the club also conducted coaching for students of Edison Township schools and worked with the nonprofit '2 Cents of Hope' to organize a charity cricket event.  

In his speech, Mr. Huckoo noted that cricket was still one of the nation's biggest secrets.   In order to gain more visibility, Mr. Huckoo spoke of the need to engage with the community. 

"Clubs must become more active in the society," Mr. Huckoo told DreamCricket.com.  Expanding on the topic, he noted that his club plans to hold political fundraisers and also get involved with American non-profit organizations such as American Heart Association and American Cancer Society.  "The game is an avenue through which we can benefit the society and we must support the causes that are dear to the society that we live in," Mr. Huckoo said.

The 2010 season was extremely rewarding for the club.   Having been a Division B team until last year, 2010 marked the first year that the club gained entry into Division A in the Cricket League of New Jersey.   To the surprise of nearly everyone in the league, the club progressed to the league finals and finished runners-up for 2010.  The club is also represented in the Millennium Cricket League, the NJ Softball Cricket League and NJ State Cricket and Umpires Association.

The following individuals were presented awards at the banquet -

Players of the year - Mahalingam Swaminathan, Sanjay Sharma and Parthiv Mehta

Best fielders - Asif Basit, Akash Patel and Amit Patel

Best bowlers - Abhishek Dwivedi, Athar Khan and Vipul Patel

Best batsmen - Alejandro Wickham and Chirag Patel

Emerging players - Shivprasad Parab and Amit Patel

All round performance - Sanjay Sharma and Rakesh Shah

5 wicket haulers - Sachin Pathare, Athar Khan, Santosh Kumar, Karthek Ramani, Srinivas Nathani, Bala Muthuswamy and Srinivas Nathani

Best umpire - Johnson George (CLNJ)

Spirit of Cricket Award - Stars Cricket Club

Cricket ambassador award - Full Toss cricket radio show on Dhoom FM (Edison, NJ)

Best Ambassador for ECC -  Sai Kumar Agaram

The event was sponsored by some of the biggest names in the transport sector - Emirates Airlines, Samrat Container Lines, AirSavings.com and Compass Tours.   El Dorado Rum provided a tasting of its premium rums at the banquet.