The second season of the tournament with former India stumper Syed Saba Karim as its chief mentor and another former batsman Lalchand Rajput as the chief selector to identify top talent offers Rs one lakh to the winning team and Rs 70,000 to the runners-up.
The state-level elimination would lead to the inter-state challenge to be held in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and rest of AP, Punjab, Baroda, Tamil Nadu - including Chennai which has returned to the fold, West Bengal, UP and MP.
Last season three cricketers were picked from the 15-strong team selected after the inter-state challenge, which took on a visiting Sri Lanka schools team in a series of matches, and sent on a month-long academic cum training stint in the UK.
The three Coca Cola cricket stars - Sarfaraz Khan (Mumbai), Akshay Brahmbhatt (Baroda) and Nitin Tanwar (Delhi) - had returned after a stint in UK between June 22 and July 18 and described their stay as a learning experience.
They trained and played matches almost every alternate day with Sarfaraz turning out for Hull Cricket Club in the Yorkshire League, Tanwar playing for the seniors team of Hymers College and Brahmbhatt wearing the colours of senior team of Cheadle Hume School.
"It was a very good experience. We could learn a lot on how to conduct ourselves and in being disciplined in our approach," said Brahmbhatt.
Sarfaraz said that it was a good experience to bat on those wickets where the ball was seaming around a lot and not travelling fast because of its damp condition.
The trio were put up with local families during their stay and "all three excelled in cricket and academics," said Dr Samir Pathak of Hull CC who was present at the launch.
