A Re­gion­al Un­der-23 tour­na­ment is cur­rent­ly un­der dis­cus­sion and Trinidad and To­ba­go could play hosts as ear­ly as next year. This was re­vealed by T&T Crick­et Board pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath as he launched the Na­mal­co/TTCB Un­der-23 Cup on Wednes­day at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va.

“I can re­veal to you that dis­cus­sions have been tak­ing place with oth­er re­gion­al ter­ri­to­ries about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a re­gion­al Un­der-23 tour­na­ment with T&T as the venue next year,” Bas­sarath said. He stat­ed fur­ther that, “The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs is al­so be­ing looked at as a part­ner with the TTCB in this Un­der-23 project which holds out promise as a foun­da­tion for fu­ture re­gion­al suc­cess.”

Once ap­proved, the Un­der-23 tour­na­ment will com­ple­ment a se­ries of oth­er grass­roots com­pe­ti­tions in­clud­ing the Re­gion­al Un­der-15, Re­gion­al Un­der-17 and Re­gion­al Un­der-19, all un­der the am­bit of Crick­et West In­dies.

On a na­tion­al lev­el, the TTCB’s chair­man of the Mar­ket­ing and Spon­sor­ship Com­mit­tee Ra­jen­dra Man­galie said the board is work­ing on a fran­chise T20 tour­na­ment tar­get­ed for next March.

The news came as the TTCB opened an in­au­gur­al Un­der-23 Cup which will serve as a pre­lude to the up­com­ing Re­gion­al 4-Day com­pe­ti­tion. Four teams will take part in the tour­na­ment be­tween De­cem­ber 5 and 14. The match­es will be played at both the NCC and the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA). All match­es are day/night and will be­gin at 2 pm.

The teams are North Mas­quer­aders, Cen­tral Flamin­gos, East/To­ba­go Leatherbacks and the South Pavers. The squads will be re­leased at a lat­er date. The ac­tion starts with the North Mas­quer­aders tak­ing on the Cen­tral Flamin­gos at the BLCA while East/To­ba­go Leatherbacks takes on the South Pavers at NCC.

Bas­sarath said the com­pe­ti­tion will help de­vel­op the play­ers as they strive to play re­gion­al crick­et. He stat­ed, “The idea of an Un­der-23 crick­et tour­na­ment is one that I have pon­dered on as the TTCB strives to pro­vide a path­way for what can be con­sid­ered as one of the most im­por­tant stages in the de­vel­op­ment of a young crick­eter. As you all are aware, age group com­pe­ti­tions form the ba­sis of our de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy which have served us in good stead and pro­duced scores of tal­ent­ed play­ers who have gone on to play for the na­tion­al and re­gion­al teams.”

The TTCB pres­i­dent said many of the lo­cal play­ers who en­joy lu­cra­tive con­tracts across the crick­et­ing world now passed through com­pe­ti­tions like these.

FIX­TURES (All match­es start 2 pm)

Round 1 – Thurs­day De­cem­ber 5

North Mas­quer­aders vs Cen­tral Flamin­gos (BLCA)

East/To­ba­go Leatherbacks vs South Pavers (NCC)

Round 2 – Sun­day De­cem­ber 8

North Mas­quer­aders vs South Pavers (BLCA)

East/To­ba­go Leatherbacks vs Cen­tral Flamin­goes (NCC)

Round 3 – Wednes­day De­cem­ber 11

South Pavers vs Cen­tral Flamin­gos (BLCA)

East/To­ba­go Leatherbacks vs North Mas­quer­aders (NCC)

Fi­nal – Sat­ur­day De­cem­ber 14 (BLCA)