Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board president Azim Bassarath is of the view that three-day club cricket is necessary for T&T to be successful in four-day regional cricket. He said the TTCB is exploring the idea of playing a full season of three-day cricket in 2024.
Bassarath, speaking at a Cricket Board media conference at the National Cricket Center in Balmain, Couva, yesterday unveiled a packed cricket calendar for the 2022-2023 season, which ends next week with the Namalco U-23 Cup and includes the return of the reds. -ball cricket in the club scene.
He explained that when the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted earlier this year, “there was not enough time to play red-ball cricket”.
Local clubs committed to 50-over and T20 cricket in 2022, but next season Premiership One teams will play three rounds of three-day cricket, contested over three consecutive days, and four rounds of two-day cricket. played on the weekend.
“In the long run, if we are going to compete in the four-day regional competition, we have to play three-day cricket. It’s simple maths and we hope from 2024, Premiership One will play all seven matches over three days – Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” said Bassarath.
“We hope that clubs will put themselves in place to ensure that this happens. Clubs may not support the idea of playing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but the TTCB is responsible for preparing T&T players and teams to participate at regional level and the buck stops with us,” he continued.
“We have to do what we have to do to make sure the players are well prepared.
We want to play more red-ball cricket, so we are putting things in place for that,” the TTCB president added.
Meanwhile, the Namalco U-23 50-over Cup will begin on December 28, with four teams. Cephas Cooper will captain the Hummingbirds; Matthew Patrick will lead the Flamingos; Joshua James will lead the Masqueraders and Kirstan Kallicharan will lead the Scarlet Ibis.
The teams will play each other once in the group stage, with the top two advancing to the final, which will be played on January 7 at the National Cricket Centre.
The inaugural U-23 Cup was played in 2019, featuring the likes of Jayden Seales and Joshua Da Silva, both of whom have gone on to play for the West Indies.
“We hope that the U-23 Cup will prepare the players enough to enter the big arena of senior team cricket,” Bassarath said of the upcoming tournament.
Meanwhile, Namalco Construction Services Limited director Alisha Ali said she was happy with the work the TTCB is doing to ensure that young players get an opportunity to showcase their talent.
She said the U-23 Cup “is the missing age group tournament” both locally and regionally and that Namalco is “extremely happy to be associated with this vital development programme”.
Namalco is sponsoring the tournament to the tune of $120,000.
