Naz Ya­coob

The of­fi­cial open­ing of the 2010 East­ern Cred­it Union–spon­sored Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion of the T&T Crick­et Board will take place to­day at Gilbert Park in Cal­i­for­nia, where W Con­nec­tion Wan­der­ers will host ti­tle-hold­ing Pow­er­Gen Sports. Man­ag­er of Pow­er­Gen Sports, Chaitram Ramjits­ingh said that his club will be go­ing all out to re­tain the pres­ti­gious ti­tle, with the likes of skip­per and na­tion­al all­rounder Samuel Badree, for­mer T&T and West In­dies youth left-arm spin­ner, Rishi Bachan, T&T wick­et­keep­er Gibran Mo­hammed and youth play­ers–Vaa­roon Sama­roo, Nicholas Sukdeosingh and Akiel Coop­er in their line-up.

"The team has been train­ing for the last two months un­der the watch­ful eyes of coach Bal­dath Bo­doe. They will be go­ing all out to play pos­i­tive crick­et in their at­tempt to keep the ti­tle," Ramjits­ingh said. W Con­nec­tion Wan­der­ers has been hit with the loss of three of their top play­ers and will have to be very con­sis­tent to be among the teams for cham­pi­onship ho­n­ours. For­mer youth all­rounder Nicholas Ram­jass has gone across the high­way to Cli­co Preysal Sports, leg-spin­ner San­jiv Gool­jar will ply his trade at FC Clarke Road Unit­ed, while T&T pac­er At­i­ba Alert will turn out for Ce­ram­ic Mer­ry Boys Sports.

Na­tion­al se­lec­tor and mem­ber of the tech­ni­cal staff, Nar­ine Bid­he­si said that he is un­per­turbed by the loss of these play­ers. "We still have William Perkins who will lead the team in 2010 and all­rounder Navin Stew­art, both of whom are po­ten­tial match win­ners. "I ex­pect that the team should give a good ac­count of them­selves and be among the top mon­ey earn­ers this sea­son," Bid­he­si said. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to league's chair­man, Dud­nath Ramkessoon, there will be cash in­cen­tives to all of the ten teams.

Pre­mier­ship Cash In­cen­tives

1st: $120,000, 2nd: $70,000,

3rd: $35,000, 4th: $25,000,

5th: $15,000, 6th: $10,000,

7th: $7,000, 8th: $5,000,

9th: $3,000, 10th: $2,000.

Round One Fix­tures –Jan­u­ary 23 & 24

Ale­scon Comets vs Ce­ram­ic Mer­ry Boys at Pierre Road;

UTT vs Cen­tral Sports at O'meara;

FC Clarke Road Unit­ed v s Queen's Park at Wil­son Road;

Cli­co Preysal vs Ra­hamut's Ever­green at In­shan Ali Park;

W C Wan­der­ers vs Pow­er­Gen Sports at Gilbert Park.

Match­es start at 10 am on Day One & 9.30 am on Day Two.