25 Million Kares T/10 KO Tapeball Cricket tournament launched

May 22, 2011 Sports

Three Scooters & over 3 million in prizes monies at stake

By Franklin Wilson

What promises to be the biggest tapeball cricket tournament yet in Guyana was officially launched yesterday at the Everest Cricket Club Pavilion, Camp Road.
The Kares T10 knock-out competition which aims to attract one thousand teams (male & female) and also caters for a separate school competition (male & female) was unveiled to members of the media at a simple but significant ceremony attended by Director of Sport Neil Kumar, Managing Director of Kares Engineering Inc. Radesh Rameshwar, who also represented Bushy Park Sawmills, Vice President of the Guyana Softball League (GSL) Dev Hira and GSL Secretary Leonard Harriprashad among others.
Kumar in main remarks said he was pleased to be a part of the launch noting that the aim of the competition falls directly within the framework of the Sports Ministry’s aim of taking sports into the communities and schools in a more direct way.
“We have particularly been placing emphasis on sports in the community and schools and after the highly successful GT&T T10 softball tournament this competition is welcome.
It is also good to see that the school’s competition will be done separately.”
Kumar is encouraging the organisers to invest the prize monies available to the winner of the respective school categories, in a sports project.
“This prize should go into a sports project for the development of the school. A multi-purpose court can be an option where they can play basketball, netball, volleyball; this can be realized with a little help from the Ministry and NDC.
I will be willing to donate the volleyball nets and basketball backboards.”
The winning male team will walk away with One Million Dollars with the losing finalist collection $400,000; 3rd place $150,000 and 4th $100,000 with trophies to top four teams.
The man-of-the-tournament and the man-of-the-final will ride away with One Scooter each with the player with the highest individual score and player with the best bowling figure each receiving $25,000.
All zone winners will be rewarded with $10,000 each and a trophy.
The female winner walks away with half a million dollars and the runner-up half that amount.
The woman-of-the-final rides away with One Scooter; the highest individual score and best bowling figure attracts $10,000 each and like the males, the respective zone winners will collect $10,000 each.
Apart from the $200,000 set aside for the winner of the school’s tournament which goes towards a developmental project, the player-of-the-semi finals and final (male & female) will each receive one lap top.
Spectators will not be left out as they will be able to win caps, bats, tee shirts and novelty games among other giveaways. Rameshwar in his remarks noted his pleasure in being given the opportunity to invest in the growth and social cohesion of the people of Guyana.
“As you know the foundation of unity for one common goal lies in the social cohesion of our communities and this is one of the purposes of this tournament. The other is to bring forth talent that lies in each community by giving them the opportunity to display such at a higher level by playing against the other communities.”
Rameshwar boasted that this tournament will be the biggest and best that will ever hit the shores of Guyana. “The tournament is free and apart from preliminary matches being played around Guyana we will be playing major matches in Berbice, Essequibo and Linden. We want to state that we are proud to be sponsors of such a tournament that will bring meaningful contributions to Guyanese.”
Hira noted that this tournament is geared to maintain interaction between the various communities across Guyana.
“This tournament will afford players the opportunity to establish themselves and sharpen their skills to have a better chance to succeed at the highest level. It would be wonderful to know that players from this tournament graduate to play for Guyana and the West Indies.”
Hira assured that the GSL will ensure the tournament is conducted in a professional manner and they will do everything in their power to ensure that it {tournament}is the centre piece of tapeball cricket in Guyana.
Registration commenced on May 5th and will conclude on June 5th, over 2000 forms have already been distributed around the country.
GSL Secretary Leonard Harriprashad stated forms will also be available in all the daily newspapers shortly.
We are aiming to bowl off the tournament on June 11 and conclude on July 31. We have in mind a number of venues for the final which includes Everest, GCC Ground Bourda of the National Stadium, Providence.”
Letters have already been sent to a number of schools for this aspect of the tournament; schools will only play on weekends at separate venues from the other matches.