… seeks to introduce white ball for Division One teams

By Frederick Halley

TORONTO, Canada — The third edition of Toronto Cup, organised by the Ontario Masters Softball Cricket Clubs (OMSCC) will be staged on August 30, 31 and September 1 this year.
During his report at the league’s Annual General Meeting, held at the Scarborough Civic Centre last Sunday, president Azeem Khan disclosed that the two previous tournaments were resounding successes and it’s anticipated that this year’s staging will be even bigger and better.

Apart from teams in Ontario, others are also expected from Guyana, New York and Florida. Khan was full of praise for all those who were instrumental in the successful staging of the previous tournaments, including the sponsors, organising committee and volunteers among others.

According to the Guyanese-born Khan, last year was quite a successful one for the league with new champions emerging in all three divisions: Skeldon Sports Club in the Over-50, Ramblers in Division Two and Warriors in Division One.

He extended special congratulations to the championship winners and runners-up, all the participating teams and also to the Inter-County winners. Khan highlighted three teams – Caribbean Sensation (51), Ramblers (54) and Our Own (51) who past 50 points during the 2018 season.

Special ‘thank you’ was also extended to the several sponsors, spouses of players, umpires and all those who assisted in any way. Khan, however, called on members to do more in the area of sponsorship. “I am asking every team to make a special effort to bring a sponsor(s) to us. Looking at sponsorship at home and abroad, it seems that your league is at the bottom; we challenge you to change that.”

Khan also had special kudos for his board members, expressing sincere thanks for their hard work, dedication and advice. “It’s not only about your playing but the backend work on uploading stats, registrations, getting umpires, league communication, and interruption to their work and family

The president reiterated that captains and every player have a role, not only to win games and control of players’ conduct but to continue working on strict compliance with permit rules. “It’s been 15 or 16 years since we have reached out to you on full permit

compliance; now we ask that you challenge yourself and your teammates to be fully compliant. I met with a Toronto City councillor recently and working on meeting with a schoolboard trustee, the discussion is all about softball cricket and grounds.

Meanwhile, OMSCC, which is celebrating 20 years this year, is exploring the possibility of introducing white balls for teams in Division One. Towards this end, the league sent out a survey earlier this year, seeking the players’ approval. According to OMSCC, “over the years, just about every aspect of our games has changed except for the type of ball used, the pinky and the red supreme ball. Based on requests from our own players and others in the US and Guyana, we think the time has come to introduce the white ball.”

Among the reasons listed were: Numerous players from OMSCC and several others who play in the other leagues in Guyana, USA and Canada and participate in International tournaments have voiced their request and support for OMSCC moving from the red to the white balls.

OMSCC pointed out that it will recommend the use of a variety of protective gear such as body cups, shin pads, batting gloves and even the use of helmets if necessary; wicket-keeping gloves are mandatory.

At Sunday’s meeting, OMSCC recognised the contributions of Littles Sports Club which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. An official of the club was presented with a bat, compliments of Black Hash Sports.

Apart from Khan, whose post wasn’t up for grabs this year, the other executive members are vice-president Feizal Bacchus who retained his post, Khem Singh, Paul Jaman and Dickey Singh who were also retained as treasurer, Over-50 coordinator and umpires coordinator respectively. The new secretary is Jas Mathura while Indira Singh who held the post of web content administrator is now player management statistician.