By Tanacia Karim

– BCB, GCA to hold separate competitions

The 2023 edition of the Speaker’s Cup T20 hard-ball edition will be played in two different areas, something that was disclosed during yesterday’s launch.

The tournament, launched at the Everest Cricket Club, is a collaborative effort between the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr. Manzoor Nadir, the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) and the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA).

Patron of the tournament and Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, spoke about the initial vision for the tournament and his hopes for its future, saying organisers had wanted to create a national T20 tournament that would run from September to October.

This tournament will serve as an opportunity for well-known players to play in front of their fans and will double as a vessel for newer players who hadn’t had the opportunity to play competitively to gain exposure.

Mr. Roger Harper, former cricketer and current vice-president of the Guyana Cricket Association, shared his sentiments stating,” we think out of this we’ll see several players going on to do bigger things.”

The tournament was originally supposed to occur late 2020 and would have coincided with the national selection period for the Guyana Amazon Warriors. However, it was delayed due to COVID-19.

This year’s tournament will begin in early June and will be split into two separate competitions to be held by the Georgetown Cricket Association and the Berbice Cricket Board.

The competition, held by the Berbice Cricket Board, will consist of twelve teams and will be played on a knockout basis. The teams will only be from the Berbice County and are as follows: Blairmont, West Indies, Police, Tucber Park, Young Warriors, Rose Hall Canje, Albion/Port Mourant, RHT Namilco/Thunderbolt, Upper Corentyne, Skeldon and Berbice River. Fans can expect players such as Romario Shepherd, Kevin Sinclair, Shamar Joseph, Shimron Hetmyer, Devendra Bishoo, Gudakesh Motie, Veersammy Permaul, Kelvon Anderson, Junior Sinclair, Anthony Bramble, Demetri Cameron, among others, as well as the possibility of some female players being incorporated into the teams.

Meanwhile, the Georgetown Cricket Association competition will be played on a round robin basis in two zones and the top two teams in each zone will qualify for the semi-finals. There will be ten teams in total with over 180 players. These teams are the Gandhi Youth Organisation, Police Sports Club, Demerara Cricket Club, Georgetown Cricket Club, Bel Air Rubis, East Coast, Everest Cricket Club, Guyana Defence Force, Malteenoes Sports Club, Trojans Cricket Club, Muslim Youth Organisation and the Transport Sports Club.

The tournament is sponsored by Parliament, Garibaldi, Enaith Printers, Banks DIH, GTT, The Suraj Foundation, BASIF and Assuria. The winning teams will receive a custom mace and 500,000 dollars while the second-place teams will receive 200,000 dollars.

Plans are in the pipeline to have the two winners face each other in a grand finale but that is yet to be confirmed.