The 50-over a side version of the newly minted Canadian National Cricket League begins today (Thursday August 2nd, 2012) at the Maple Leaf Cricket Club, King City, Ontario. Thursday’s games, scheduled for 11 am starts, involve the Pacific Edge against the Eastern Fury, and the Western Stallions against the Prairie Fire. The winners of today’s games then meet on Friday with the better losing side (determined by net run rate) meeting the Central Shield in what, effectively, are semi-finals for the 50-over competition. Friday’s winning teams advance to Sunday’s final, and the losing teams battle it out for third-place. Then on Tuesday, the National Cricket League switches to the T20 format.
Each of the squads in the National Cricket League involve a mixture of Canadian international cricketers (a core of 21 designated high performance players) and leading players from each of what are the five cricketing development regions of Canada, as designated by Cricket Canada. The Pacific Edge squad is based on the British Columbia development region, and today face the Eastern Fury, based on Canada’s eastern development area of provinces which meet the Atlantic Ocean. These eastern provinces took part in July’s Atlantic T20 Championship on Prince Edward Island won by Nova Scotia, although there is no PEI player in the squad this year. These eastern provinces are: New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Prince Edward Island.
Jimmy Hansra is captain of the Pacific Edge while Rizwan Cheema will lead the Eastern Fury.
Thursday’s other game sees the Western Stallions, based on the Alberta development region, play the Prairie Fire, based on the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Wicketkeeper-batsman Hamza Tariq leads the Western Stallions while the Prairie Fire is lead by Henry Osinde.
On Friday the Central Shield, based on the Ontario development region, enters the fray, with Zubin Surkari as captain. The Central Shield is the one side with a separate squad for 50-overs and T20 matches. Sharose Shah is due to captain the Central Shield’s T20 squad next week.
Next week’s T20 National Cricket League event has three matches (two set for 11 am starts and one set for 3pm) on August 7th and 8th, with two games (both set for 11 am starts) on August 9th and 10th and the final set for Saturday 11th August at 11 am, as is the playoff for third place.
In the short-term, the participating players and officials will have to lead the cricketing charge, as the late announcement of this event means various monthly and weekly publications will not have had the chance to provide any pre-event publicity, a situation that will hopefully be remedied next season.
Still, at least we know the game start-times, ground location (Maple Leaf CC is at the north-east corner of the Dufferin Street intersection with 15th Sideroad, King City) and the knowledge that some people have an interest in the development of cricket in Canada. Around the time of the 2008 Scotiabank National T20 cricket championship, I was told, via e-mail, that the originally scheduled All-star games and mixed squad games set for the Victoria Day public holiday were basically for the benefit of the selectors. Some, like me, thought that games involving leading Canadian cricketers and a mix of players from the “smaller” cricket playing provinces would be of interest to the broader Canadian cricketing public. A thought that seemed consistent with the aims of the Canadian Cricket Association, as stated in the Bylaws. And a thought contained in some of Cricket Canada’s output. But there are some interesting folk involved in the Canadian cricket scene, and some documentary evidence that there have been some interesting folk in Canadian cricket in the past 50 years or so, if not back into the 1800’s.
But the show will go on, regardless (unless it belts down with rain). All the world’s a stage, with or without “national TV” and “reality shows”. Best wishes to the players, officials and tournament director/tournament committee members.
Eddie Norfolk