U-19 Cricket: Dialog-ST Most Popular Schoolboy voting begins from Sunday

The Dialog 4g-the Sunday Times Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2017 will officially kick off today (8), with the Sunday Times carrying the first printed coupon which our readers could use to make their favourite schoolboy cricketer -- The Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2017. 

As it is done customarily, the Dialog 4G-the Sunday Times Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2017 competition will have the coupons in selected Wijeya Newspapers publications -- the Sunday Times, Daily Lankadeepa, the Daily Mirror with Ada and Daily FT from today onward to make the competition more interactive. 

As it has been taking place since 2008 when the Sunday Times became a main cog of this prestigious competition, all aspects of it have been included but in a whole new dimension. 

The competition reaches another level with Dialog Axiata, one of the leading establishments in the local telecommunication industry, joining hands as partners of the Sunday Times. 

The whole competition, running up to the gala awards ceremony, is expected to be glamorous and eventful, with more features and upgraded features being added to it. 

Besides the main set of awards, which will be picked by an expert selection panel under the patronage of the Sunday Times, Dialog will take the Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2017 to the next level adhering digital and social media. 

Coupons will be published from January 8 in the Sunday Times and it will follow throughout the week in the two English dailies, the Daily Mirror and DailyFT, and the two Sinhala dailies, Daily Lankadeepa and Ada. 

Coupons will run for 26 weeks with the deadline set for week beginning on July 2. 

Readers could vote for their favourite schoolboy cricketer and take them to the winning post during that period. 

In addition Dialog Axiata will introduce a digital version with an online voting system through an Online Portal to vote for the Most Popular Cricketer (www.dialog.lk/cricket). 

There will be a different method to follow in the digital process of voting for the Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer. 

Players who have represented their respective school in First XI cricket and with a tally of 400 or above runs and 25 wickets or above in the last season will be automatically eligible for the Dialog 4G-the Sunday Times Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2017 competition. 

The competition, as usual, will have three categories -- the All-Island, Emerging and International schools. Readers will be able to send in as much as coupons valid for the week before the cutoff date of the named week. 

All schools competing in the ongoing Inter-School Division I tournament will be categorised under the All-Island Schools while the remaining schools, competing under Division II and III categories, will come under Emerging Schools. 

International Schools will come under a different category. 

This method will be effect to the selections as well as for choosing the most popular schoolboy cricketer. 

With the introduction of the digital voting mechanism the entire interface of the competition is expected to reach another level. 

However players who wish to enter the fray will have to confirm their participation by registering online with www.dialog.lk/cricket from January 8 to 31. 

Even schoolboy cricketers whose names are entered into the competition by readers must register during the month of January. 

Players who registered online will be officially scrutinised of their eligibility and entered to the online voting mechanism from February 1, while the customary voting through coupons will be still on. 

Both coupon votes and online votes will be counted on a weekly basis and the official results published every week beginning Sunday in the five newspapers and its websites, as well as that of Dialog Axiata's Online Portal. 

The deadline for online voting will be the same as for the coupons. 

The first week's results of the Dialog 4G-the Sunday Times Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2017 will come out next Sunday (15).