Trinidad to host club Twenty20 competition

The West Indies Players Association (WIPA) has announced a regional Twenty20 competition in Trinidad with a winner's prize of $1 million. Named the WIPA 20/20 Club Champions League, the tournament will be held at Guaracara Park in Pointe-a-Pierre between May 2 to 11 and will be televised nationally.

The competition will feature seven top Trinidad & Tobago clubs, in the form of two-time defending Carib 20/20 champs CLICO Preysal, W Connection Wanderers, Alescon Comets, Queen's Park Cricket Club, First Citizens Clarke Road United, 2008 Carib Sunday League winners Ceramic Merry Boys, and PowerGen Sports.

These local clubs will be joined by others from around the region, making up 12 teams competing in four groups for the top prize, with the runners-up taking home $300,000. The visiting clubs include GCC, Dominica, St Kitts, UWI Barbados, and a WIPA Masters XI, the members of which Dinanath Ramnarine, the WIPA president and chief executive, is keeping close to his chest for now.

"It's a surprise," Ramnarine said during a press conference at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain at the launch yesterday. The competition will feature day matches from 3.30 pm and night matches at 8 pm, which will be televised nationally on CNMG.

Ramnarine also revealed yesterday that the WIPA are currently in talks with regional sports station SportsMax to carry the event live throughout the region. The league will get underway with a double-header, scheduled for May 2, with the UWI Barbados team taking on the WIPA Masters XI at 2.30 pm, while Couva-based arch-rivals Wanderers and Preysal face off from 8 pm. Admission to the preliminary rounds is $20, while the knockout matches cost $30, and the final $40.

Ramnarine explained the tournament was developed to help foster a deeper relationship between cricketing communities in the region and to help give non-international regional players greater exposure in the game.

"We want to stretch that association to other territories, to develop relationships between clubs and communities within the region and to engage in a virtual twinning, tripling, quadrupling exercise," Ramnarine said, adding that he hoped the event can have a permanent place on the annual domestic cricket calendar.

"We want to encourage competition, rivalry, camaraderie in a truly West Indian atmosphere and all that goes with this."

Ramnarine also took a moment to congratulate the West Indies team on their recent one-day series win against Sri Lanka, which they took 2-0.

"I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the captain, management and members of the team for their outstanding performances and to associate the executive and members of the WIPA with the justifiable kudos they have been receiving from all quarters for their sterling efforts."