Battle for honours in Gerry Gomez cricket begins today

The new domestic cricket season will be officially opened today at 10 am when the first ball is sent down in the annual Pizza Hut Gerry Gomez North/South cricket classic today at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain. The lines between men North and South of the Caroni River will be drawn today as the battle for local cricket supremacy takes place. North, the defending champions have played great cricket for the past four years to keep the coveted trophy out of thea Southern hands. The match will create a lot of attention despite the fact that the Test stars are away on West Indies duty in South Africa. In their absence the babes of West Indies cricket led by the Under-19 players will be on show. West Indies Under-19 captain Dinesh Ramdin as well as Tishan Maraj will line-up for South, while Lendl Simmons and Jonathan Augustus will be in the North line-up. Another major attraction today will be the sight of Jamaican Ricardo Powell turning out for North.

The aggressive right-hander has decided that his future in the game lies with Trinidad and Tobago and he will be aiming to continue his run of good scores in order to make the national team for the upcoming Carib Beer Series regional tournament. Powell is married to a Trinidadian and owns a business at Ariapita Avenue, Woodbrook. Sponsors Prestige Holdings are also doing their part to make the event a grand affair by pumping in substantial money in the 69th Classic. Marketing Manager of Prestige Holdings, Nigel Bissoon has made it clear that although his company are sponsoring the event they will not be supporting mediocrity and will be giving incentives to persons to attain a high level of performance. The team that scores the highest total in excess of 300 runs will receive $2,500, while every player who scores a century will get $1,000. Each bowler taking five wickets or more will also receive $1,000, while the highest individual score by a batsman rakes in $1,000. That player however will have to score over 75 runs to take the cash.

Prestige have also taken fans into consideration and the first 100 entrants to the match will receive a voucher for a personal pan pizza to be collected at Pizza Hut. The North/South Classic dates way back to 1926 and for a period of time was considered a First Class fixture by the International Cricket Council. That is no longer the case but the match still creates fierce rivalry between players and fans on either side of the divide. North have dominated the event winning 37 contests, while their Southern counterparts have won the event on 15 occasions with 16 matches ending in stalemates.

Teams for today’s clash:
North: Imran Jan (Capt), Dwayne Bravo (v-capt), Aneil Kanhai, Ricardo Powell, Lincoln Roberts, Earnil Ryan, Jonathan Augustus, Lendl Simmons, Ricardo Paty, Reyad Emrit, Kapil Subran, Samuel Felix, Keiron Lynch, Petrock Nicholas, manager/coach: Claude Phillip.
South: Shazam Babwah (capt), Dinesh Ramdin, Tishan Maraj, Kenton Thompson, Sherwin Ganga, Gregory Mahabir, Sherwin Ganga, Davindra Krishna, Avidesh Samaroo, Marlon Black, Theodore Modeste, Denzil James, Brent Harriot, Gibran Mohammed, manager/coach Roland Sampath.