Playing sports has always been one of my favorite hobbies. Out of all, cricket is the sport that I enjoy playing the most. Turf grounds are a rising trend in Surat and cricket is a very popular sport all over India. Hence, organizing a cricket tournament on turf grounds helped us attract more participants which also helped us raise some funds for orphan kids. So, organizing a  ‘5 vs 5 cricket tournament’ on turf grounds, for two days, was the perfect CAS project with all three strands of CAS. Around 14 teams participated in our tournament.

This project covers all the three strands: “Creativity”, “Activity”, and “Service”.

The learning outcomes covered in this project are-

LO1- Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth.

Throughout this project, I was able to identify the various strengths and weaknesses of mine. Time management, organizing skills, and communication skills were my strengths. My communication skills became my strength when I was able to persuade people to participate in this tournament. Satisfied and happy participants at the end of the tournament were a sign of how good our organizing skills were. However, my impatient nature and creative thinking skills were a major weakness. At times, when matches weren’t getting started on time, I became a little irritated. My impatient nature was a major weakness in this project. Being able to identify my strengths and weaknesses have been very beneficial as it will help me in future projects. Not only in CAS but this will also help me in my day to day life. Now as I know that I have strong organizing skills, I can take up charge in school events that require people with strong management/ organizing skills. At the end of the project, I reflected on my weaknesses and I have thought of working on my impatient nature. Being patient will make a good listener which will help me in the future and also it will make such events run more smoothly. Working on my creative-thinking skills will majorly help me in IBDP requirements like TOK, etc.

LO2- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

For me, the most challenging part of the project was negotiating with the owner of the turf field for setting up the right price for the field. Negotiation might sound easy to people but it isn’t so easy in reality. It was the hardest aspect of the project for me because I had never negotiated before and that was the first time I actually did it. Though I was nervous seeing the owner’s intense look at first, my calm and respectful behavior while talking to him made him favor my point. Developing this skill made my confidence level higher for the future. While I felt really proud at first, I realized how such challenges will come to me in future stages. It is really important for a person to take up challenges because that will help him/her to develop a new skill, or else help them foster their personality. Although I was little skeptical for taking up this challenge in my project, I now feel privileged to be able to negotiate as it helped me develop my negotiation skills which will really help me in later parts of my life. Also, negotiation is turning into a ‘survival skill’, which means that it is necessary for a person to know about it to live a sound life. Hence, I feel content to be able to develop a really important skill.

LO3- Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

While usually, I am an organized person, organizing the tournament was a little difficult for me. It was difficult for me to initiate the CAS plan rather than planning it. It was easier to plan the project when compared to initiating it. It was easier to plan out where we wish to conduct this tournament and how what the format will be, however, it was quite difficult to manage the matches on the days of the tournament. During this project, I was able to discover that I am pretty good at conflict resolution. Maybe, it is a skill that I developed in me through the course of this project. According to me, as I was able to conduct this project successfully, even in the future I will be able to plan and initiate similar projects. This confidence that I have in myself will be very useful to me when I will be planning out bigger business projects in the future.

LO4- Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

While the idea of organizing a tournament seemed to easy at first, it turned out to be quite difficult when we were nearing the tournament. We found it quite difficult to find sponsors for our tournament. Sponsorship was very much necessary for our project because we won’t have been able to cover up our costs which means that we won’t even be able to donate to the orphanage. However, we were committed enough and talked to various organizations. We tried convincing them and finally, we were successful in doing so. Furthermore, we faced more challenges related to the weather. As our tournament was scheduled in June, there were chances of rain on the days of the tournament. We couldn’t stop it from raining but the only thing we thought of doing was to ask the owners of the turf field to help us cover the top of the turf field. With the help of the ground-keepers, we were able to spread out a cloth on the top of the net, that was originally placed over the ground. It was very much necessary for us to cover the ground as heavy rains would cause water-logging on the ground. Commitment was very much necessary to make this project a success. I am usually a committed person whenever it comes to something related to sports or academics. For me, showing commitment is very much necessary to be successful in anything because we face challenges while doing anything.

LO5- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

For me working in a team is very much easy because I can gel up with people quickly. During this project, working in a team was much easier than general because I was working with two of my closest friends who share the same interests as me. Hence, I faced no difficulties in working collaboratively during this project. However, it is very much necessary for being able to work in a team because it has various benefits. Working in a team means that there are more ideas and inputs. Also, in times of difficulty, the workload is divided in the team. Also, in the future, while doing business, people do need to work in a team or with partners. Therefore, it is very much needed to be able to work in a team.

LO7- Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Any cricket match requires an umpire. So, for our tournament, all three of us (Vansh, Rhythm, and I) were the umpires in all the matches. Umpiring in a cricket match doesn’t only require knowledge about the sport but also requires integrity and fairness. It was very much necessary for us to be fair towards everyone during our tournament. We had two teams in our tournament which were of our closest friends still, we weren’t biased towards them. For us, showing integrity during our tournament was an aspect related to our ethics. After our tournament finished, our friends from the two teams showed a little disappointment towards us as they weren’t able to make it to the finals. However, we three were satisfied with that because we were fair enough and we let the skills of the teams decide the winners.