Crick­et re­turned to Amer­i­ca on Sun­day as Crick­et Coun­cil USA (CCUSA) be­gan a Ten10 (T10) Tour­na­ment at Maq Crick­et Ground in Del­ray Beach, Flori­da, USA.

CCUSA, which was the first crick­et body to in­tro­duce Twen­ty20 (T20) crick­et in Amer­i­ca (back in 1999) and al­so T10 crick­et in 2016, again is ahead of the rest in bring­ing the sport back af­ter four months off for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

On Sun­day, there were two match­es played with Pak­istan Ea­gles com­ing up against Or­lan­do Stars. Af­ter tak­ing the first match by six wick­ets, the Ea­gles again were in top form in the af­ter­noon tak­ing the sec­ond match by sev­en wick­ets.

Be­fore the match, all play­ers were giv­en safe­ty kits by CCUSA as ac­cord­ing to the chair­man of CCUSA, Ma­ham­mad Qureshi, all safe­ty pro­to­cols were ob­served.

"We took all the safe­ty pre­cau­tions. We were guid­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) safe­ty guide­lines on COVID-19 and all went well, I must say," Qureshi said.

"We have been in­un­dat­ed with calls from crick­eters around Amer­i­ca dur­ing COVID-19 as to what is the fu­ture of the game here. We had to act quick­ly and this we did. He arranged safe­ty kits for the play­ers and had them dis­trib­uted be­fore the crick­et. The play­ers all ex­hib­it­ed re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour and the first round of match­es went off well. We are all look­ing for­ward to next week­end for the con­tin­u­a­tion."

This Sun­day, USA's Red Force with sev­er­al T&T-na­tion­als on it will be play­ing against New York All-Stars and Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al.

Red Force skip­per Tim­my Su­ru­jbal­ly, who has scored 47 cen­turies in var­i­ous US Leagues, is hap­py to get the chance to play once again say­ing: "We are very grate­ful to CCUSA for think­ing about us the crick­eters and get­ting this tour­na­ment off the ground. It has been hard not be­ing to do the thing we love but Maq Qureshi and CCUSA are again putting the smiles back on our faces."

Crick­eters from T&T nor­mal­ly go across to play when­ev­er CCUSA has tour­na­ments but with the bor­ders in T&T closed due to the pan­dem­ic, they can­not take part in the se­ries.

For­mer T&T Red Force all­rounder Navin Stew­art, who has been a reg­u­lar play­er in the leagues in Amer­i­ca, said whilst it is frus­trat­ing that he can­not fly across to play, his health comes first.

"It has been frus­trat­ing be­ing un­able to go across and play in the leagues but health takes prece­dent at the mo­ment. I love play­ing at tour­na­ments like the US Open T20 and I see that CCUSA start­ed back crick­et on the week­end. I am look­ing for­ward to play­ing again in the States and look­ing to prob­a­bly get out there in Ju­ly.

"It is a slow process but one has to be pa­tient through all this. I have just start­ed back my net ses­sions. Dur­ing the lock­down, I did a lot of phys­i­cal train­ing and al­so did a lot of cook­ing. It was al­so a good time to spend with the fam­i­ly. I am look­ing for­ward to go­ing back to the US to play crick­et soon."