St. Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association (SVGCA) has announced it’s first-ever T10 franchise-based competition, named Vincy Premier League (VPL), which will commence from next week. The 10-day tournament will be played between May 22 – 31, 2020 and all matches will take place at the Arnos Vale Sporting Complex.
Amid this global COVID-19 crisis when sporting activities around the world has come to a standstill, this announcement has created a lot of buzz in the fraternity. President, SVGCA, Dr. Kishore Shallow spoke of the enthusiasm of stakeholders locally and abroad about the prospects of the VPL.
“It is an exciting time for cricket in SVG, I can feel the buzz of sports enthusiasts who are thirsty for some cricket and sports,” said Dr. Shallow. He further explained, “We came up with this T10 franchise format because of the absence of sports content at this point, and thought that this brand of cricket would be enticing to cricket fans across the globe in a short duration. The competition will be over a nine-day period, and all 30 matches will be streamed live.”
The event also featured the presentation of the six logos for the franchises, designed by E-FishAnt Solutions. The teams carry the names of main tourist attraction sites in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The six franchises drafted Seventy-two players in a similar format to that of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and Indian Premier League (IPL).
Marquee player and representative for Botanical Gardens Rangers, West Indies player Kesrick Williams said that he enjoyed the drafting process.
“It was great being part of the draft. Though it got tense at times, because we all wanted to secure the best players and team composition, it was really an enjoyable experience,” said the leading wicket-taker for T20I since 2016. Other marquee players of the tournament are West Indies players Sunil Ambris and Obey McCoy, as well as Keron Cottoy, Lindon James, and Desron Maloney.