East Coast U-17 Tourney
By Clifford Hinds
The first East Coast Invitational Under-17 Cricket Tournament will take place on Thursday, August 7 at 10:00 am and will continue on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The six participating teams are Northeast Region, Northern California Lions, Central Tigers, Atlantic Region, Southwest Region and New York Region.
Chetram “Mario” Persaud will lead the New York team.
This tournament was conceived by Youth Coordinators of USACA at a conference call to discuss the Under 17 tournament that was previously scheduled for Des Moines, Iowa. There was unanimous support that a tournament should be held in New York.
The tournament is being sponsored jointly by the Northeast, Atlantic and New York Regions. The name given to the tournament is a clear indication that the USACA Regions of the USA East Coast plan to hold future tournaments for the youngsters.
The objective of this tournament is to provide a platform on which the young players can display their talent. Most of the recently selected USA Under-17 players will be taking part. Three of New York Region’s four national U-17 players, Chetram Persaud, Captain, Novendra Boodhoo, Vice Captain and Garranshua Sharma will be there while Keifer Phil will be in Guyana playing for the ICC Americas Under 19 team.
The local team will also include Nicholas Harripersaud, Archibald Brydon and John Brydon who have been promoted from this year’s Under 15 team. Laksmidath Chaitram, Surrendra Singh and Michael Katwaroo have all represented the region at the Under 15 level.
The other NYR players are Govinda Balgobin, Randy Permaul, Haasher Warriach, Ravin Krishna, Jamiel Jackman, Elliott Bedessee, Arithra Nirmal and Richie Bakarran. The team will be managed by Rahul Sharma who is the current Manager for Pioneer /Tristate Cricket Club in the Metropolitan Cricket League.
The tournament will be played on August 7, 8, 9, 10 with 3 games each day. The first 3 days will be at VCP with the Sunday championship game and the 2 runner up games to be played at Marine Park, Brooklyn. There will be a Presentation of Awards ceremony after the games.
Regional Chairman, Lester Hooper, Nigel Harper, Milford Lewis, Cliff Roye, Venelda Wallace, John Wilson, Patrick Sutherland, Linden Dodson, Rudy Persaud, Krish Persaud and other members of the NY regional administration have provided assistance in preparing the team and planning the tournament. Stakeholders, Lloyd Dixon, John Mitchell and Dillon Bourne are assisting with the logistics.