There are two major Cricket Canada events being held this coming weekend, the Central and Western Regional T20 tournaments. These are selection events for the National T20 tournament to be held in late July, which itself is essentially try-outs for national selection. The Cricket Canada web site – sadly out of date since its redesign- has no mention of these other than the dates, and its social media presence is devoted to promoting the Global T20 (update: the Crickdet Canada web site now has an article mentioning these events– with the wording showing a striking similarity to that used here, including the earlier error that six teams rather than eight are taking part in the Central T20). Cricket BC however has the following details:-

2018 Western T20 Tournament. Teams from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan. 23rd/24th June 2018 West Newton Community Park

Cricket Ontario have a schedule on-line with eight teams taking part- Manitoba, five Ontario teams, and teams from Nova Scotia (last year’s Eastern T20 winners) and Quebec. The eight teams are divided into two pools, with the top two teams in round robin play (all completed on the Saturday with each team playing three times) advancing to semi finals.

It is to be hoped that Cricket Canada is not completely focussed on the commercial Global T20 event to the exclusion of domestic cricket. The Global T20 teams may play one or two Canadian qualified players, but the future of the national team lies in identifying new talent, and the regional T20s are really the only opportunity for many players to perform in front of national selectors. As an aside, it is not clear who these selectors are. The Cricket Canada selection policy states “The Board of Directors is responsible for :- Appointing and announcing the Selection Committee annually (generally by October of the current year”. We are not aware of any announcements made in the current or past year, and the current national selectors remain a mystery.