Sanasie touts National T20 tournament in 2020

By Akeem Greene

Secretary of the Guyana Cricket Board, Anand Sanasie, has guaranteed a domestic T20 franchise tournament will be held prior to the commencement of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) in 2020.

Since CPL started in 2013, the Guyana Cricket Board has not organised another national T20 tournament.

Prior to such, an Inter-County T20 tournament was held to select a National squad for the then West Indies Cricket Board’s Caribbean T20 tournament. Guyana lost the last final in 2013, by nine wickets to Trinidad and Tobago in St. Lucia.

With the window for CPL 2020 being August 19 to September 26, Sanasie confirmed the restart of a domestic T20 competition.

“What we have being doing in the last two years is trying to develop the LBI Facility and it all comes down to funding. This year I guarantee you, as we did with the Three-Day Franchise and 50-over, the T20 version is going to be on for this year just before CPL comes around again.”

He added, “However, it is a product we are trying to grow; we now have a vibrant marketing and fund raising department to garner some sponsorship…we know this is the revenue garnering format in cricket, however, it takes some doing to actually get it to make money for you. We started to invest in the Franchise League here and that has borne some fruit. The T20 will be on this year and we hope to grow it thereafter.”

It is still unclear if the tournament will be held prior to the CPL Player Draft, which is expected to be staged in May.

The objective is to have players exposed in this tournament so more can possibly be drafted by the local CPL franchise, Guyana Amazon Warriors.

“I am sure we can develop the product here; you cannot look at who will be selected this year, but as the product is developed, it will be who can be selected down the road. We know Guyana will be experiencing an economic boom and we hope a lot more money can be invested from corporate companies into the sport.”

“What I can guarantee you, with LBI coming along with lights and the quality of lights like at the National Stadium, that can afford us more opportunities at having T20 cricket, especially night matches.”

When completed, the LBI venue, which is currently undergoing a multi-million-dollar upgrade, is expected to host regional matches and should be one of the premier cricket grounds in the region.

It will also host the Cricket Guyana Inc. Academy training sessions

In February, the playing area was expected to finish and by June floodlights should be installed. The entire project should be completed by 2023.