The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Nagico T20 Cricket Tournament is all set for May 24-25 at Windsor Field.

The two-day event, which is now expected to become a permanent fixture on the Bahamas Cricket Association’s calendar, will be held in conjunction with the Guyana Independence celebrations.

BCA president Greg Taylor said they welcome Nagico on board as their principal sponsor of the tournament, which was won by the Bahamas in February last year.

“Last year, the Bahamas Cricket Association, the Guyana Cricket Association and Nagico formed an alliance and Mr Vibert Williams of Nagico agreed to sponsor the tournament on the assurance that it was successful,” Taylor said.

“The tournament was a success and Mr Williams again agreed to sponsor the tournament this year. We haven’t had something like this since the Benson and Hedges Tournament a couple years ago, so the Bahamas Cricket Association is extremely proud and excited to form this alliance with Nagico.”

Vibert Williams said Nagico is known as cricketing company with the majority of its senior managers having played some form of the sport. They are best known for their sponsorship of the Nagico Super 60 Tournament that is played in Trinidad & Tobago.

“Nagico puts a tremendous amount of money into cricket and before cricket because one of the main reasons is we see it as an avenue where people can get together and expense some energy, build some camaraderie and a good corporate event for us to get involved in,” Williams said.

Williams said when he came to the Bahamas to head the company in 2012, he was eager to get Nagico deeply involved in the sponsorship of cricket and they were quite pleased with their first initive last year.

“We are doing it again to coincide with the Independence celebrations of Guyana and that is why we are also partnering with the Guyana Bahamas Association.”

David King, who heads the Guyana Bahamas Association, said they are delighted to be partnering with the BCA and Nagico to make this event a memorable one.

“With cricket being our national sport in Guyana where we play matches wherever we can on the streets, we thought the best way for us to celebrate our independence by putting on a cricket tournament.

“When I approached Nagico to sponsor the tournament, they jumped on board immediately and so while the tournament is now in its seventh year, this is the second year that it is being sponsored by Nagico.”

While Guyana gained its independence in 1966, this will be the 9th year that the celebrations are held in the Bahamas. Williams said they want to celebrate in a more tangible way this year.

“We are very, very pleased to put on this tournament and to have the three entities coming together and working together to ensure that we now promote cricket in the Bahamas so that cricket will be more well-known in the Bahamas.”

The four teams picked to determine who will play each other when the tournament gets started.

In the opening match on May 24, Guyana is scheduled to take on the Rest of the World, followed by the Bahamas vs Jamaica at 3pm. On the final day, the two losers are expected to clash for third place at 11am and the two winners will square off for the title at 3pm.

This year, Nagico will present cash prizes of $1,800 to the winning team, $1,000 for second place and $700 for third.

Team Bahamas is the defending champions, but the other three teams indicated that they are going to make another run for it this year.

Michael Smith, the captain of Jamaica, said after losing to the Bahamas last year, they are coming back for vengeance.

“We know that Jamaica will come out on top this time,” Smith said. “We have some plans. We are twitting it as we speak and we think we will be able to pull it off this year.”

Andrew, Gregory Irvin, Lance ‘the Master Blaster’ and the ‘calm and cool’ Smith are just a few names to watch out for.

Albert Peters, representing Guyana, said they are more than eager to compete this year.

“We played and lost to the Bahamas in a thriller, but this time around because this is going to happen around our independence celebrations, we are looking forward to pulling it off.”

Paul Thompson, manager of the Rest of the Word team, said they are going to act as the spoilers. “We are looking to secure our team from the rest of the players who are available, but we feel it’s going to be a good mixture of youth and experience,” Thompson said. “Hopefully we will pull it off this year.”

Thompson, however, said he has been doing his scouting and he has some players in mind to make up a very competitive team.

When it’s all said and done, Lavan Burrows said he doesn’t expect anything to change for the Bahamas. “We are the champions and so I don’t know what Michael Smith from Jamaica was thinking when he said that they’re going to win and he can’t beat me,” Burrows said.

“We’re going to win this tournament again.”

The Bahamas will be led by the Taylor brothers, Gregory Jr and Marc, along with Mario Ford and Cliff Atkinson.