Seenath's Auto and Raj's Spare Parts from Bamboo has decided to come together to host a lucrative domestic Twenty20 (T20) league that has attracted top cricketers from T&T.
Some of the top local players taking part are Kevon Cooper, Akeal Hosein, Rayad Emrit, Tion Webster and Lendl Simmons in the tournament which bowled off last night in Bamboo Number Two according to tournament official Vishwanath Seenath.
"This was born out of an idea to bring back happiness to the people of Bamboo who suffered at the hands of the dreaded floods last November," said Seenath.
"Cricket makes people happy and in fact, it makes us happy at Seenath's Auto so we wanted to do something for the community and decided to partner with Raj's Spare Parts to bring smiles to the community. This is going to be a quality event because we always believe that when you do something do it well, or don't bother."
There is a first prize of $25,000 and tournament committee has decided that for this, the inaugural year, they will only host a small number of teams. The teams taking part in the tournament are Bamboo Strikers, EYM, Police, Aranguez Sports Club and Titans.
"We gave clubs a deadline to show their interest and at the point of cutting off, we decided to leave it as five. Many others want to come in at the present time but we will have to leave that for next year's tournament.
"We have put everything in place for the teams that have registered and we intend to make this tournament a classy one. The teams will have a number of matches to play because we will have a round-robin before the knockout stage."
In addition to prize monies, the players will benefit from "Man of the Match" award programme and other prizes.
Jagessar winning titles in droves
Off-spinner Jon Russ Jaggessar has started off the year in brilliant fashion by playing a big part in Queen's Park Cricket Club's (QPCC) winning the Unicom University of the West Indies (UWI) T20 title and also the World University T20 crown playing with the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC).
The 32-year-old Hermitage resident has hooked up with the QPCC for this season and has been training diligently to attain figures that would see his reinstatement on the national team.
Jaggessar thinks that he might have just missed the nod of the national selectors for the regional Four-Day Tournament as he was on the squad for the match against Barbados but did not get the chance to play.
His positive attitude and mental toughness have seen Jaggessar on three winning teams in the regional championships. His first title was realised against tough regional oppositions in the Regional Super50 Tournament. He ended the tournament with 10 wickets and the second-best economy rate of 3.17 per over.
Jaggessar’s second title was achieved in the UWI tournament played last month. Again Jaggessarn proved his off-spin juggle was too much for his opponents. He took five wickets in three matches with an economy rate of 5.2 per over.
In UWI Unicom T20 series, Jaggessar represented QPCC and played a major role in their winning the title. In four matches he was able to muster seven wickets at an economy rate of less than six.
What is most significant about Jaggessar’s figures is the fact that he opened the bowling in all three tournaments. This meant that he had to bowl the new ball in an equally difficult power-play situation.
He measured up to this onerous task and helped his three teams emerge victors. Jaggessar has done a lot of work with Vasudev Rampat at the Kumar Rampat Cricket Academy in California. He can be found there on the weekly basis fine-tuning his art.
Rampat said, "Jon bowls some prodigious off-spin mixed with astute variations which have earned him some key wickets.
With three titles under his belt in recently, Jon is set to enter the local premier tournament hunting for scalps that would see his re-emergence on the national senior teams.
Mangallie takes care of Marchin Patriots
Former national cricketer Rajendra Mangallie continues to assist in local cricket development and his latest act of kindness is to sponsor the Marchin Patriots cricket club from Charlieville.
Mangallie who is the managing director of Mangallie's Trading said he just wanted to make sure that cricket is played in the village and wanted to give back.
"I am happy to be a part of the Marchin Patriots set up and I have decided to sponsor the team. The president of the club Adrian Ali approached me for sponsorship and I had no hesitations in helping him because I see the good work that he is doing. There are a number of good young cricketers in the area and we don't want to see them waste their talent. We are providing a nice set up for them at Marchin Patriots and some of the other senior guys are coming into the set up to build a strong unit."
The team will be captained by former Alescon Comets player Parram Rampersad and will include the former West Indies opener Suruj Ragoonath. Other players in the line-up are Ali, Robin Rampersad, and Jayson Jacob.