vinode.mamchan@guardian.co.tt
The annual curtain raiser for domestic cricket in T&T, the UWI UNICOM T20 tournament will bowl off on Saturday with three matches at the UWISPEC facility at UWI, St. Augustine.
Queen's Park Cricket Club, which has never won the title will come up against Endeavour in the opening match that begins at 10 am.
The second match on the opening day's programme takes place at 2 pm and will see Merry Boys against Endeavour and topping off the action from 6 pm will be a clash between QPCC and Merry Boys.
In all, there will be 12 teams vying for the crown over seven days and a total of 15 matches will be played including the finals. The dates for the preliminaries are January 5, 6, 13, 14, with the semifinals carded for January 25 and 26 and the finals on January 27.
The clubs battling to take away the first prize of $35,000 will be defending champions PowerGen, Central Sports, Cane Farm, Queen's Park, Merry Boys, Club Crusoe (Tobago), Munroe Road, UWI, Endeavour, Prison's, EYM and Clarke Road.
PowerGen Cricket Club will be defending the title without their star player from last season Daron Cruickshank. The hard-hitting Queen's Park batsman played as a guest on the PowerGen team and was voted player of the tournament. He now returns home to Queen's Park looking to help them take the title. "We have a number of good players on the team like Justin Guillen, Joshua Da Silva and Kirstan Kallicharan who are hoping to play some great cricket and add this title to the others we have already won."
Also speaking about the tournament was Da Silva who said he is looking forward to getting big scores: "We want to win this title, as we have never won it before. I am hoping to get in some good performances with the bat to assist my team.
Patrons will be charged $20 for entry to witness the preliminary games and 40 for the semis and finals. UWI students will be charged $20 for the semis and finals.