By Frederick Halley

TORONTO, Canada – The Scarborough Cricket Association (SCA) T20 tournament will take on added significance in the 2018 season as plans are afoot for the competition to be competed over a three-day period on what is referred to as a ‘long weekend’ in Toronto, encompassing a Monday holiday.

Giving an outline of the plans at last Sunday’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), held at the Agincourt Community Centre, Scarborough here, SCA president Shiv Persaud said the games will commence on Friday evening and climax on Sunday with the grand finale. In 2017, the matches were played mainly on Saturday mornings.

Persaud also disclosed that the SCA will be endeavouring to add other entertaining attractions with the hope of attracting bumper crowds on all three days.

The SCA will also reintroduce a third division this year which will see an expected eight new teams compete for top honours. This tournament will be played on a 35-over per team basis unlike the Elite, Premiere, First and Second divisions which are competed over 50 overs.

Four women’s teams, including newcomers Trinity Women’s Cricket Canada – a spin-off from Superstars, Kaisoca and Superstars – will vie for supremacy in the women’s division.
According to founder and president of Trinity Women’s Cricket Canada, Abigail Rajkumar, she decided to establish her own club with the professional expertise, vast experience, knowledge and success within the cricket community at a national, provincial, league, board member, player and team/club levels in Ontario, Canada.

Rajkumar also pointed out that Trinity Women’s Cricket Canada members are also affiliated to the Ajax Cricket Club. She boasted of being the person accredited for leading the way and achieving success in cricket development, growth in girls/women, junior, youth and senior male cricket with her former club and taking it from being unknown to being successful.

The unavailability of grounds, including the three at Ellesemere for the past two seasons, have been a source of worry for the SCA executives but according to Persaud strenuous efforts are being made to obtain other grounds.

Chairman of the SCA Disciplinary Committee, vice-president Bisham Singh disclosed that there was a marked decrease in disciplinary matters in 2018 while there were gaps in statistics keeping and registration of players because teams were not following the instructions on the website. He, however, pointed out that the SCA executives are working to correct that situation.

Singh extended thanks to members of the committee “who gave their time and efforts to attend hearings” and also pointed to the improvement on team’s behaviour towards opposing teams and players and respect shown towards umpires.