TCI to participate in Overseas Territories Cricket tourney

By Vivian Tyson
SUN Associate Editor

In an effort to develop and increase the competitiveness of their cricket among themselves, the British Overseas Territories will be staging a two-week cricket competition to take place in the last week in March in Montserrat .

Six Overseas Territories have already committed to the competition, among them, the host country, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Bermuda .

The competition will be patterned after the Stanford 20/twenty Cricket tournament with two games to be played on a daily basis. The two top teams will contest the final, but prior to the final, the runner-up teams will contest the third place play-off.

Minister of Education, Youth and Sport, Hon. Dr. Carlton Mills welcomes the idea, saying that this would augur well for the development of cricket not only among the territories, but in the region.

“I think it will have a tremendous impact on cricket in the overseas territories, particularly in Turks and Caicos. Right now, we have eight teams competing here in Providenciales in this series. Grand Turk is supposed to start this month. We also have the kiddies' cricket going very well in Grand Turk ; the organization is to start it (kiddies' cricket) in Providenciales in March.

“And I think this will be a boast for that (overseas territories tournament) in the sense that will be having a farm, since one of our challenges with cricket is that we do not have sufficient young players. So by starting it within the schools we will have a cricket farm where we can groom young players,” Dr. Mills said.

He noted that for a long time, the overseas territories have been collaborating on politics and other matters, and it was high time that they share in sport, particularly cricket, which the region's top sport.

“The overseas territories have been collaborating in politics, but this would be the first time that we would have them collaborating in sports, and the prestigious sports in the Caribbean really is cricket. All the governors are asked to be involved at one level, and they have all been invited to the tournament, because they will be having Governors' prizes,” Dr. Mill said.

The Turks and Caicos Islands is currently engaged in two international cricket tournaments – the ICC-run Americas Cup and the Stanford 20/twenty. The British Overseas Territories Tournament will be the third such tournament that the TCI will be involved with.