The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion sea­son is ex­pect­ed to bowl off with a bumper start at four venues across the coun­try on Sat­ur­day, as all nine teams will have most of their play­ers avail­able and seek­ing in­di­vid­ual mile­stones.

With the Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) First Class sea­son start­ing lat­er in the year, on­ly Aa­di­an Racha (West In­dies Un­der 19), Jay­den Seales, Evin Lewis, Akeal Ho­sein, and Khary Pierre (West In­dies Se­nior) are not avail­able for se­lec­tion by their teams.

Al­most all teams will field new tal­ents and faces fol­low­ing a lot of move­ment with sev­er­al crick­eters switch­ing al­le­gen­cies.

Bess Mo­tors Marchin Pa­tri­ots will face a coali­tion of teams with Cen­tral Sports and York­shire team­ing up, and they will now be known as Cen­tral Sports York­shire at Cun­jal.

Cen­tral Sports Pres­i­dent Richard Ramkissoon told Guardian Me­dia Sports that it is a move that will help pre­serve the sport in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Cen­tral Sports have de­cid­ed to col­lab­o­rate with an­oth­er club that is in a sim­i­lar po­si­tion,” said Ramkissoon. “So that we could pool our re­sources again per­ma­nent­ly to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity and longevi­ty.”

Cen­tral Sports York­shire will not have the ser­vices of Kamil Pooran, who joined fel­low Cen­tral ri­vals Marchin Pa­tri­ots, while Kjorn Ot­t­ley head­ed south to join his broth­er Yan­nick, who is the cap­tain of Clarke Road.

Club pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­habir hailed Clarke Road’s part­ner­ship with KFC as a mile­stone mo­ment in the club’s over four-decade jour­ney. He said, the KFC new spon­sor­ship deal with the In­ter­na­tion­al­ly revered and en­joyed brand, is look­ing foward to a spe­cial sea­son. The club’s on field qual­i­ty and ex­cit­ing brand­ing will be en­hanced with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of su­per­star Nicholas Pooran who is ex­pect­ed to turn out with the Pe­nal-based out­fit for a few match­es.

He said, “Nick­yP will be well sup­port­ed by club cap­tain Yan­nick Ot­t­ley and his broth­er Kjorn, along with Vikash Mo­han, Mark Deyal, Nicholas Sookdeosingh, Dex­ter Sween, Jesse Bootan and An­der­son Ma­hase to name a few. Tal­ent­ed young wick­et-keep­er bats­man Chris­tiano Ram­nanan is al­so among the clubs emerg­ing play­ers.”

The team is be­ing coached by Di­nesh Ma­habir and man­aged by Gre­go­ry Ma­habir,keep­ing an im­por­tant link with the foun­da­tions of the club and the com­mu­ni­ty.

Im­ran Khan has gone back ‘home’ at Ale­scon Comets in an ef­fort to help them gain pro­mo­tion for the 2027 sea­son for the Pre­mier­ship II Di­vi­sion. Sev­er­al play­ers from Cen­tral have joined him in the move.

To fa­cil­i­ate the new part­ner­ship arrange­ment be­tween Cen­tral and York­shire, to­day’s match will be played at Cun­jal Recre­ation Ground in Bar­rack­pore.

How­ev­er, Pa­tri­ots will be boost­ed with the ad­di­tion of Joshua James from Pow­er­gen, but the team will be with­out the ex­pe­ri­ence of top-or­der bats­man Evin Lewis, who is on West In­dies du­ty. His ab­sence can pos­si­bly stretch to at least three rounds of match­es if he is se­lect­ed for the World Cup by the West In­dies.

Nev­er­the­less, the Pe­nal gi­ants Pow­er­gen Sports will be field­ing a strong team, and ac­cord­ing to club chair­man Chaitram Ramjots­ingh, they are look­ing to “win the tour­na­ment this year”. Like all oth­er clubs, Pow­er­gen will take ad­van­tage of the play­ers be­ing home for the start of the sea­son. They have se­cured the ser­vices of out-of-favour West In­dies bats­man Je­re­my Solozano.

Ramjits­ingh said, “This is the first time in a long time Ja­son Mo­hammed and Cephas Coop­er will be with us for the ma­jor­i­ty of the sea­son,” and they want to take ad­van­tage of their pres­ence against a strong Preysal team, which has the for­mer Queen’s Park cap­tain, Isa­iah Ra­jah.

Preysal will al­so ben­e­fit from ac­quir­ing the ser­vices of West In­dies Un­der 19 fast bowler Aa­di­an Racha of York­shire, who will join them up­on his re­turn from the ICC T20 World Cup. Peysal has a good mix­ture of youth and ex­pe­ri­ence and is ex­pect­ed to give Pow­er­gen a test on open­ing day.

Queen’s Park will be led by out-of-favour West In­dies bats­man and Red Force cap­tain Joshua Da Sil­va. Spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine will miss the open­ing fix­ture, but he’s ex­pect­ed to line up for the Port-of-Spain gi­ants from the sec­ond round. Dar­ren Bra­vo will play the role of play­er-coach.

Head coach and for­mer Red Force coach David Fur­longe con­firmed Queen’s Park will be fur­ther strength­ened by the re­turn of spin duo Khary Pierre and Akeal Ho­sein and pac­er Jay­den Seales up­on their re­turn from West In­dies du­ty ei­ther be­fore or af­ter the World Cup.

To­day’s Fix­tures

At Diego Mar­tin - Mer­ry­boys vs Queen’s Park

At Cun­jal - Cen­tral York­shire vs Marchin Pa­tri­ots

At Preysal - Preysal vs Pow­er­gen

At Clarke Road - Vic­to­ria vs Clarke Road

Pris­ons are on a bye