Sikkim women’s team coach and former Under-19 (Girls) and senior women’s team captain Kikam Bhutia has been appointed by National Cricket Academy (NCA) as the Coach of Northeast/Bihar Zone team along with Team Coach cum Manager Puspanjali Banerjee for the Inter Zonal One Day Cricket Tournament.
The tournament will be conducted by Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) from July 16 to 25 at Chennai under the patronage of National Cricket Academy (NCA) as per the BCCI One-Day matches rules.
Kikam Bhutia from Gangtok in East Sikkim has done level-A and level-B coaching course under National Cricket Academy. She has also been the intern coach for the Indian women’s camp at NCA, Bangalore in 2011 and intern coach for the East Zonal camp U-19 in 2015. Before becoming a coach she has represented Sikkim as a player and was the captain of the team that became runners up in the Associate and Affiliate Cricket Tournament held in Shilllong in the year 2011.
A Sikkim Cricket Association press release informed that during April-May 2018, Kikam was also appointed as the Fielding and Wicket-Keeper coach of the Under-19 (Girls) Northeast/Bihar Zonal Academy Camp in Imphal, Manipur. She is the first women coach from Northeast/Bihar Zone to be appointed as a member of the coaching staff of the BCCI conducted training camp.
The release informed that 15 Under-19 girls from the Northeast/Bihar Zone have been selected to represent in this Inter Zonal One Day Tournament. Kikam Bhutia (Coach) along with Pallav Vora (Consultant Coach), Pushpanjali Banerjee (Team Coach cum Manager), Pooja Swar (Physio), Hithaishi B (S & C Coach) and Utpal Das (Video Analyst) has been appointed by National Cricket Academy as the coaches and support staff of the Northeast/Bihar Zone team, that will be competing with 5 other zone’s team namely East Zone, South Zone, West Zone, North Zone and Central Zone.