Atlantic T20 starts play today

Charlottetown, PEI: Play begins today (Friday, August 1, 2014) in the Atlantic T20, featuring representative senior mens teams from the five most easterly Canadian provinces, after an early morning opening ceremony at Tea Hill Park, Stratford, Prince Edward Island. The tournament comes as Prince Edward Island’s celebrations of hosting the first conference that lead to the formation of modern Canada. A conference held in Charlottetown, the provincial capital, that began on September 1, 1864.

An introduction to this year’s Atlantic T20 on Cricket Canada’s website points to cricket’s contribution to the history of the confederation conference in 1864. The Charlottetown Cricket Club was the first sporting club to be formed on Prince Edward. It came into existence in 1850. Charlottetown Cricket Club beat Pictou in Nova Scotia in or about July 1864 and followed with a home win on PEI soil on August 1, 1864.

The 2012 tournament was held at the new cricket ground in Stratford, which is to the east of Charlottetown and on the opposite side of the Hillsborough River. Although Charlottetown Harbour is a confluence of three rivers that then flow into Hillsborough Bay which intertwines with the Northumberland Strait. The Northumberland Strait separates Prince Edward Island (PEI) from the Canadian mainland coast. The eastern coasts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are on the western side of the Northumberland Strait from a PEI perspective. The northern coast of PEI lies in the Gulf of the St Lawrence, the waters to the eastern end of PEI then become the Atlantic Ocean.

These names of the rivers, waterways, gulfs, bays and the Atlantic Ocean reflect the names given by the settlers who “discovered” Canada and are unlikely to reflect the names given by the aboriginal peoples who pre-date such discovery by Europeans.

More than 150 festivals and events to celebrate Confederation

There are “more than 150 festivals, events and activities” in PEI’s celebration of hosting the first of the 1864 conferences that ultimately lead to Canadian confederation in 1867. A second conference in took place in Quebec City in 1864.
Sadly the Atlantic T20 is not currently blazing the local headlines in the local media or government advertising about this weekend’s PEI 2014 celebrations. The PEI Truck and Tractor Championships in Crapaud (August 1-2) and the 150th PEI Highland Games in Eldon (August 2-3) take sporting precedence, as do some other cultural events. PEI’s 50th Annual Tyne Valley Oyster Festival continues until August 3, whilst the Atlantic Fiddlers Jamboree (August 1-3) embraces fiddling styles from the Atlantic Canada and around the world in Abram Village.

Friday’s cricketing action will see hosts PEI meet Newfoundland and Labrador in the tournament’s opening game, scheduled for an 11am start. My understanding is that the Newfoundland and Labrador side as originally announced has been hit by some injuries. A major task for day one will be to confirm the five participating squads. This should be a simple task as all five provinces are due to play on Friday. PEI’s neighbours from across the Northumberland Strait, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick meet in the second game on Friday. The opening day concludes with a game between Newfoundland & Labrador and Quebec. The Quebec Cricket Federation’s website indicates preparations for this year’s Atlantic T20 have been taking place in a series of mid-week nets and practice sessions in Montreal.

In 2012 the Quebec opening bats produced an opening stand of 67 from 8.2 overs. The third wicket fell at 87, the scoring virtually dried up but the fall of wickets became a tidal wave as Quebec’s innings floundered to 101 all out from 17.5 overs. Sukhedo top-scored for Quebec with 33, Maxwell scored 25. Few mathematical skills are needed realize they were Quebec’s opening batsmen. Amit Joshi lead the victory charge with 57 of Nova Scotia’s 104/3. A total scored from 11.5 overs. Joshi had captured 4/15 in the Quebec collapse, Ragharaman did slightly better with 4/13.

The Quebec v Nova Scotia was scheduled as the last match of the 2013 Atlantic T20 in Montreal, but it was washed out. The washout cemented the 2013 championship for Nova Scotia, although I am sure both sides would have wished to have seen the game played rather than falling rain.

This year the Quebec v Nova Scotia game is scheduled as the last of four games on Saturday. Quebec open Saturday’s action against PEI. Nova Scotia then plays Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island then goes head-to-head with New Brunswick, and the day closes with the meeting of Quebec and Nova Scotia.

The potential that someone plays a major innings for any of the participating teams in this short form of cricket could, of course, lead to some interesting results and upsets. Some quality bowling could also lead to an upset or two, but scoring runs for developing and emerging teams can be a factor in turning a good bowling performance into a win.

The championship concludes on Sunday when the day is due to open with New Brunswick against Newfoundland and Labrador. Prince Edward Island then faces Nova Scotia and the game between New Brunswick and Quebec completes the tournament schedule.

The weather forecast is promising for Friday and Saturday but there is a chance of some rain on Sunday.

The State of Cricket in the participating provinces

Quebec has the largest number of operating club teams of the provinces competing in the Atlantic T20. The Quebec Cricket Federation’s 35-over Premier Division has 12 teams, and the two conferences of Division A list 15 teams. No completed games are shown in the Division A standings at present, whilst there is a significant difference between completed games for the teams in the Premier Division.

Sher E Punjab are shown as Premier Division leaders with 7 wins and 3 losses from 10 games. Centennial have won 5 and lost 1 from 6 games, while one of the other teams, Verdun Montreal, is only show as having played 2 games. Bengal United (0 wins/5 losses) and MCSO (0 wins/4 losses) are at the foot of the current standings.

The Nova Scotia Cricket Association has been trying in recent seasons to bolster cricket after it had ticked along with few teams for a number of years. But in ticking along with just a couple of teams, cricket had, at least, continued. There are now four teams in the Halifax League, efforts are being made to bring the game to the schools, there is indoor cricket in the winter and the provincial teams participates in both the Atlantic T20 and the Martimes 40-over league. The Maritimes league involves games against New Brunswick and PEI.

A Halifax League All-Stars game was due to be played last weekend between the Halifax Bluenosers and the Halifax Lobsters. The Halifax league comprises Halifax Blue, Halifax Gold, Halifax Green and Halifax Red. These teams meet in T20 and 40-over matches. Halifax Gold won the early season Deonarine Trophy.

Cricket New Brunswick has three mens teams playing in Fredericton and claims to have the only women’s team in the maritimes. Efforts are being made to bring cricket to the schools and an annual snow cricket tournament forms part of the winter activities. The University of New Brunswick topped the standings in the 3-team T20 competition with a record of 3 wins, 2 losses and 1 no-result. Fredericton Cricket Club had a similar record but the University had a better net run rate so qualified automatically for the T20 final. A semi-final playoff was scheduled last weekend between Fredericton CC and Loyalist CC to decided who would meet University of New Brunswick in the Cricket NB T20 final.

Newfoundland and Labrador organizes winter indoor cricket as well as summer outdoor cricket. This year two clubs outdoor cricket involves two clubs based on historic names of clubs that played in the 1890’s , Shamrocks and Terra Novas each field two teams. One team plays at the competitive level, while a pair of developmental teams play at a slightly less competitive level.

Prince Edward Island currently has two teams that participate in a mix of weekend and mid-week games for the Chandrasekera Trophy, a trophy named after Cricket PEI President Saath Chandrasekera. Stratford Blue and Stratford Yellow have met several times this season, although some matches have been washed out and others have taken place on
a “damp and cold Saturday morning”.

Cricket in the Maritimes is, at present, a restoration and development effort by a relative few, but we wish the few all the best for this weekend’s tournament and for the future in building the game around Canada’s eastern shores.

Cricket Canada has already posted a message of good wishes to those participating in the 2014 Atlantic T20 on Prince Edward Island.

News and pictures from the tournament are expected to emerge on a daily basis. Canadian cricke could certainly do with some people to push out news and scores from tournaments such as this, and from leading cricketing leagues across the country. The game in Canada could probably do with a few more scorers so the detail of what happens in leading matches becomes available on a timely and reliable basis so that reliable scores and news might flash across the country and around the globe from domestic Canadian cricket. More news, more coverage, more photos and vidoes might help attract more sponsors as well as more players, officials, scorers and spectators.

Will about 340 people from Nova Scotia be attracted to cross the Northumberland Strait to see this year’s Atlantic T20? Something like that number are said to have come for the Charlottetown v Pictou match on August 1, 1864. We shall see.

Eddie Norfolk
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
August 1, 2014

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