SDC T20 returns this weekend

The Social Development Commission (SDC) Twenty20 Community Cricket competition will start this weekend with a full slate of matches in the rally phase of the championship across selected venues.

SDC Executive Director Dwayne Vernon said that per COVID-19 protocols agreed with the Government, no spectators would be allowed inside the venues.

The competition will be making a return to the cricket calendar after last year's tournament was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that the teams in the competition are eager for action.

"We have the permission to host our competition, so we have done the necessary work with the [Ministry] of Health in the various parishes where we would have looked at the venues and ensured that they are in a state that we can safely observe all the protocols," Vernon said.

"We are very happy that we are going to be able to get back on the field because communities really need to be engaged again through sports and I am very happy that the Ministry of Local Government, working with the Ministry of Health, has given us the go-ahead to start this competition."

Vernon said that more than 200 teams have registered to participate in the tournament this year, but he is urging their spectators to stay away from the matches because they will not be allowed inside the venues.

"We will monitor the measures that have been set out by the Government and we will work in tandem with those measures," he said.

St Mary's Gayle Cricket Club are the defending champions having won the last staging of the competition in 2019.