13 Mar 2014

The second edition of the national cricket 20-20 (T20) tournament will kick off this weekend in both the north and south regions.

The tournament was launched last year by the Botswana Cricket Association (BCA) with the aim of giving local players a platform to compete and gear up for international competitions. This year’s T20 tournament will be used to prepare for the 2015 Africa region division qualifiers.

The tournament will run for approximately two months, starting this weekend until May 11. Like last year, the tournament will initially be played in a round robin format with teams in the north and those in the south competing amongst themselves.

The top two teams from both regions will then advance to the semi-finals, and the semi-final winners will compete in a championship match on May 11.

The southern region comprises of five teams, Gaborone 1, Gaborone 2, Gaborone 3, Gaborone 4, and Lobatse /Kanye. The northern region comprises of Nyangabwe Cricket Club, Francistown Cricket Club, Francistown Sports and Recreation Club and Selebi Phikwe.

Sumod Damodar, secretary for fixtures and publicity at BCA, said all the teams that will be competing are affiliates of the BCA. He added that BCA intends to keep its affiliate teams very busy playing competitive cricket in the T20 and 50-overs throughout the year.

“After this tournament the association will hold another competition which will be in the 50-overs format, featuring the same teams that are currently competing in the T20. We will stage another T20 tournament towards the end of the year,” he said.

Damodar added that BCA is concentrating on T20 and 50-overs because these are the formats that they will be competing in in future international tournaments.

The T20 tournament will kick off with four matches on Sunday. In the south Gaborone 1 will clash with Lobatse/ Kanye at the BCA Oval in the morning and later face off with Gaborone 3 in the afternoon. In the north, Selebi Phikwe will host Francistown Sports and Recreation Club in the morning and Nyangabwe Cricket Club in the afternoon.Ends