FOLLOWING his success story behind his two one-day Twenty20 cricket festival dubbed the ‘DJ Stress  T20 Festival’, well-known entertainment promoter Paul Bonar has been contracted by the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) to promote the two ‘grudge’ matches between Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) at the Guyana National Stadium next weekend.
Already, Bonar has been getting things streamlined for the two matches which the Guyanese will be using as a warm-up prior to their departure for South Africa where they will compete in the second Airtel Champions League T20 tournament next month.
On each match day, there will be a supporting game commencing at 16:00 h and for the first match next Saturday, New Line Cavaliers (NLC) who were dethroned as the DJ Stress T20 champions, will face newly crowned champions Universal DVD Club’s Berbice Titans.
This match will serve as the perfect appetiser for the Guyana/T&T match up that follows, as the Canal Number Two team, led by national middle-order batsman Gajanand Singh, is eager to have a go at the Ancient County team.
The supporting match for the following day will see the Gizmos and Gadgets Georgetown Pitbulls, who lost their first round match-up in this year’s DJ Stress T20 to the Titans, take on East Coast Jaguars.
What is interesting about the supporting matches is that the players who are currently encamped with the national team at the Princess Hotel, will be available to play for their respective teams if they are not selected to play in the Guyana/T&T match.
Certainly for NLC and Berbice Titans, this will be a boost as they have key players in their lineup who are encamped with the national team, which means to miss these two days of action-packed cricket that will cost fans $1 000 will be a mistake.
Bonar is well known for promoting T20 matches since his debut last year with his two Festival matches at both the National Stadium and Albion Sports Club ground, with this year’s tournament having Caribbean flavour added to it with the inclusion of a T&T-based team, along with West Indies players Christopher Gayle, Lendl Simmons, Dwayne Bravo, Rayad Emrit and Marlon Samuels.
However, what should be of importance to cricket lovers in Guyana is their country’s match-up against the self-acclaimed cricket powerhouse T&T, who felt they should be the ones going to South Africa and not Guyana.
Despite being beaten by Guyana on three occasions (and that’s their only T20 losses in the Caribbean), T&T still deem themselves the best T20 team and would be looking to prove that is so next weekend, hence the hype leading up to these matches which commence at 20:00 h each day.
But while they would be coming from the Twin Island Republic with a strong lineup inclusive of Simmons, Emrit, Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Dave Mohammed, Adrian Barath and inspirational captain Daren Ganga, they will be met by a gale-force resistance from the home team.
Inspirational skipper and West Indies middle-order batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan, Travis Dowlin, the veteran Lennox Cush, Narsingh Deonarine and new find Jonathan Foo, along with brothers Royston and Esaun Crandon and leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo are the players who will be looking to excel in the two matches.
Tickets purchased for the two days of cricket at $1 000 per day, will allow access to any of the four main stands. They can be had at M & M Snackette (all locations), Dave’s Sports Bar (Grove), PK’s Variety Store (Canal #2), Aaron & Andrew General Store (Parika, Meter-Meer-Zorg and Vreed-en-Hoop), Joseph Record Bar, Discount Palace (Lusignan) and Lalsa General Store (D’ Edward Village, West Berbice)
Telecommunications provider and official sponsor of the West Indies team, Digicel, along with Carib Beer, Pepsi and Universal DVD Club out of Berbice, is the sponsor of the two-day activity.
While all the teams for the matches have not been made known to the media up to press time, the teams for the Guyana/T&T matches will be chosen:
T&T from: Daren  Ganga (captain), Lendl Simmons, Justin Guillen, Adrian Barath, Darren Bravo, Kervon Cooper, Sherwin Ganga, Kieron Pollard, Imran Khan, Dave Mohammed, Rayad Emrit, Daniel St Clair and Sunil Narine. Colin Borde (manager), Kelvin Williams (coach) and Ronald Rogers (trainer)
Guyana from: Ramnaresh Sarwan (captain), Christopher Barnwell, Devendra Bishoo, Sewnarine Chattergoon, Derwin Christian, Esaun Crandon, Royston Crandon, Lennox Cush, Narsingh Deonarine, Travis Dowlin, Jonathan Foo, Assad Fudadin, Steven Jacobs, Paul Wintz, Richard Ramdeen. Carl Moore (manager), Rabindranauth Seeram (coach), Orin Bailey (trainer), Beverley Nelson (physiotherapist).