Vin­ode Mam­chan

In an his­toric move, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) in part­ner­ship with Queen's Park Crick­et Club launched fran­chise crick­et in this coun­try, yes­ter­day at the Cen­tu­ry Ball­room of the Queen's Park Oval on Tra­garette Road, Port-of-Spain.

The tour­na­ment called the TTCB Pow­er­Play T20 se­ries in­volves four fran­chise teams and will bowl off on June 22 at the Oval. The match­es will be played along­side the West In­dies 'A' team and In­di­an 'A' team T20 match­es. The four teams are owned by Carib Brew­ery, Tri­ni Posse, Petrotrin and An­gos­tu­ra. The own­ers each paid $100,000 for the fran­chise and the TTCB will use these funds to pay the play­ers ac­cord­ing to a tier sys­tem. This was re­vealed by crick­et op­er­a­tions man­ageVIN­ODE MAM­CHANr at the TTCB, Dud­nath Ramkessoon yes­ter­day. Ac­cord­ing to chair­man of the na­tion­al se­lec­tion pan­el. "We have named a cap­tain and eight play­ers for each team. We think that we have come up with the right mix, so as to have very com­pet­i­tive crick­et.

"The teams will be led by Samuel Badree (Carib Bears), Justin Guillen (Tri­ni Posse), Rayad Em­rit (An­gos­tu­ra) and Daren Gan­ga (Petrotrin). The teams' own­ers have a few days to con­sult with their peo­ple and come up with their fi­nal squad. They can bring in two for­eign play­ers and we have short­ed-list­ed a num­ber of pos­si­ble op­tions. If the team wants to bring in oth­er play­ers then they have to stand the ex­tra ex­pense. "With the two for­eign play­ers that would bring to 11 their squad and then they are now free to pur­chase three play­ers lo­cal­ly to bring their fi­nal squad to 14 for the se­ries." On the open­ing day, Tri­ni Posse will meet An­gos­tu­ra at 2.30 pm and Petrotrin will come up against Carib Bears at 7 pm. On day two, the losers of the open­ing games will play at 2.30pm for the third place prize of $8,000 and this will be fol­lowed by the West In­dies 'A' against In­dia 'A' at 7 pm. On the fi­nal day which is June 24, the win­ners of the first two match­es will meet in the cham­pi­onship match for $30,000 at 2.30 pm, while the West In­dies 'A' and In­dia 'A' will play their sec­ond match at 7 pm. The run­ners-up stand to gain $15,000 for their ef­forts.

The ti­tle spon­sors for the tour­na­ment are Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) and Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC). Jeanette Elias cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at NGC said: "We be­lieve this tour­na­ment has great po­ten­tial to as­sist in sports tourism and hence we are do­ing our part in keep­ing with our phi­los­o­phy of Cor­po­rate So­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. "This tour­na­ment can grow and be­come a great tool for de­vel­op­ment of our crick­et and crick­eters. We would like to con­grat­u­late the TTCB for their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and busi­ness-like ap­proach to this ven­ture." Al­so on hand was Ke­iron Ser­rette of TDC and he said this tour­na­ment is seen as a ma­jor boost in the as­sist­ing sport tourism in this coun­try. "Re­cent­ly we had for­mer min­is­ter of Sport Manohar Ram­saran take charge of our sports tourism trust and we thought that be­ing in­volved in this event will show that T&T can be­come the hub for sports tourism in the Caribbean."

TEAMS: (five play­ers still to be added to all teams)

Carib Bears: Samuel Badree (capt), Adri­an Barath, Aaron Al­fred, Im­ran Khan, Akeem Al­varez, Sher­win Gan­ga, Davin­dra Kr­ish­na and Strassark Sankar. Man­ag­er Chaitram Ramjits­ingh, coach David Fur­longe.

An­gos­tu­ra: Rayad Em­rit (capt), William Perkins, Ahmed Mo­hammed Aniel Kan­hai, Keon Isaac, Amit Jag­ger­nauth, Derone Davis, Kavesh Kan­tas­ingh and Navin Stew­art. Man­ag­er Roland Sam­path, coach Kelvin Williams.

Tri­ni Posse: Justin Guillen (capt), Nicholas Sookdeosingh, Nicholas Alex­is, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Jahron Al­fred, Khar­ry Pierre, San­jiv Gool­jar, Adri­an Ali and Vaa­roon Sama­roo. Man­ag­er Omar Khan, coach Gre­go­ry Davis.

Petrotrin: Evin Lewis (capt), Mario Bel­con, Yan­nick Ot­t­ley, Keon Ce­les­tine, Dave Mo­hammed, Daron Cruick­shank, An­cil Bha­gan and At­i­ba Al­bert. Man­ag­er Alec Burns, coach David Williams.

FIX­TURES

June 22 - Tri­ni Posse vs An­gos­tu­ra, 2.30 pm.

June 22 - Carib Bears vs Petrotrin, 7 pm.

June 23 - Third place play-off, 2.30 pm.

June 23 - West In­dies 'A' vs In­dia 'A', 7 pm.

June 24 - Fi­nal @ 2.30pm.

June 24 - West In­dies 'A' vs In­dia 'A', 7 pm.

PRIZE MON­EY

Win­ner - $30,000

Run­ner-up - $15,000

Third place - $8,000

Fourth place - $3,000.