OVER $6,000,000 in cash and incentive prizes, the largest ever for any softball tournament in Guyana, will be up for grabs when the third edition of the Vice-president T20 Softball Cup bowls off on Thursday with the women’s division, to be followed by the three men’s categories on Friday.
While the venues for the preliminary rounds are still to be finalized, the finals are set for the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) ground, Queenstown on Sunday, commencing at 8:30 hrs and ending under lights.
The winners of both the Open All Class and Legends Over-50 categories will waltz away with whopping one million dollar prizes and winning trophies while the runners-up will take home $200,000 and trophies. The Most Valuable Players (MVPs) in each category will ride away with motorcycles while the man-of-the-match in each final gets a trophy.
The women’s category will see the winners pocketing $300,000 and a trophy and the runners-up $100,000 and a trophy. The MVP gets and electric motorcycle.
In addition, players with the most wickets in each category will receive a water dispenser, most runs – a Milexus refrigerator, five-wicket hauls – executive chairs and players registering centuries – air-fryers.
All cash prizes for the Masters Over-40 are still to be determined since the organisers, the Georgetown Softball Cricket League (GSCL) is still hoping to get additional teams to the three that have already registered.
At Friday’s launching, held at the Gandhi Youth Organisation (GYO) ground, GSCL Vice-president John Ramsngh was ecstatic over the cash and incentive prizes up for offer, describing it as the biggest softball payout in the history of softball tournaments in Guyana.
John also disclosed that the GSCL has approached the Georgetown Cricket Umpires Association (GCUA) to provide umpires for all the matches and that each game will get an electronic scorer, the first of its kind for softball cricket in Guyana.
The Vice-president also hinted at the possibility of re-introducing the ‘small ball” (Supreme) at future tournaments pointing out that “the game originally started with that brand of balls.
All the trophies for the tournament are being donated through the kind courtesy of Ramesh Sunich of Trophy Stall fame. (Frederick Halley)