Michael Holding Masters cricket bowls off
Defending champions New York Masters are back to defend their title in the Michael Holding Masters Cricket Competition, which will be played at seven locations across the island beginning today.
The 14-team competition boasts seven local teams and seven overseas based teams.
The local teams are Ultimate Masters (St Ann), Clarendon Masters, Manchester Masters, St Elizabeth Masters, Melbourne Masters, St James Masters and Kingston Masters. The overseas based teams are New York Masters, Queens Masters, Caribbean Masters, Long Island Masters, Florida Masters, Atlanta Masters and the Brooklyn Masters.
Courtney Walsh is one o the many former West Indies cricket greats who will be in action during the competition.
The competition will bowl off today and will end next Saturday.
Today’s fixture will see the following matches which all begin at 10:30 am.
St James Masters (LT2) vs Atlanta Masters (OT6) at Kaiser CG;
Ultimate Masters (LT3) vs Caribbean Masters (OT5) at Ultimate CG;
St Elizabeth Masters (LT4) vs Queens Masters (OT4) at Manley Horne CG; Clarendon Masters (LT5) vs Florida Masters (OT3) at Content Gardens; Manchester Masters (LT6) vs Brooklyn Masters (OT2) at Manchester HS; Kingston Masters (LT7) vs New York Masters (OT1) at Sabina Park.
The Melbourne vs Long Island Masters (new team) match has been rescheduled to a date to be announced due to rain affecting the pitch preparations.
A special feature of this year’s competition is that the young cricketers will be quizzed based on the contents of the book Jamaica at the Wicket of which 240 were given to the participating schools (who compete in the Jamaica National Primary Schools Competition) during the 2010 competition. Four of them received scholarships last year.
Austin Hutchison, the organiser of the competition said “during last year’s tournament we were able to give the Michael Holding scholarships to the top four under 13 cricketers from the previous year’s competition and this year we plan to hand out some scholarships as well”.