Cayman Cricket, the governing body for the sport in Cayman Islands, have announced that the sport is all set to resume in the country with The Cayman Cricket Premier League, a franchise-based T20 tournament from Sep 13th – Oct 25th, 2020 at Jimmy Powell Oval in West Bay.
Four teams, namely West Bay Loggerheads, Bodden Town Eagle Rays, North East Barracudas and George Town Hammerheads, will be competing against each other in a double round-robin group stage format in the next 6 weeks from the day of commencement. This is the second edition of the tournament and North East Barracudas will be making their debut in 2020. The tournament marks the resumption of the sport, after Cayman Cricket hosted England’s county club Northamptonshire on their pre-season tour in Feb 2020.
Tournament organizer Ricardo Roach said “The Cayman Islands has always had good, competitive club cricket. This is an opportunity for the players to play outside of their comfort zones and really shine through as individuals. I expect the competition to be highly entertaining and competitive. We have some exciting players on show and I know that they will not disappoint.”
Each match-days on every Sunday will see all the four teams in action, with the morning game starting at 10:30am local time and the afternoon game starting at 2pm local time. Cayman Islands national squad members, Troy Taylor (West Bay Loggerheads), Paul Manning (Bodden Town Eagle Rays), Conroy Wright (North East Barracudas) and Ramon Sealy (George Town Hammerheads) will be leading the teams in the competition.
The tournament will provide both the national squad members and the domestic players the opportunity to impress the national selectors for staking claim in the national squad for future International assignments. Cayman Islands are due to play in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Regional Final (Americas region) sometime in 2021, as the tournament got postponed from being held in Canada in Aug/Sep 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic. Cayman Islands will play against Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Canada, Panama and USA for qualification spot in the Global Qualifiers for 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia.
