IT'S NOW official that this year's West Indies limited-overs cricket championship will not be sponsored for the first time in its history and there will be one preliminary round of matches. The West Indies Cricket Board late on Saturday announced that the preliminary matches in the competition would be contested in Guyana from October 16 to 24, and the semi-finals will take place on October 28 and 29, with the Final on October 31, all in Barbados. "The original plan of two rounds in Guyana and Grenada had to be revisited due to damage to Grenada by Hurricane Ivan," remarked Leonard Robertson, corporate communications manager of the WICB, in a news release. "It is expected that the plan for two rounds will be implemented next year as part of the revised West Indies domestic cricket season." FIRST TIME It is the first time that the limited-overs competition has failed to attract a sponsor. Unlike the four-day, first-class championship, the shortened version has always been an easy sell for the WICB from its inception in the early 1970s. From the outset, Geddes Grant and Harrison Line played a major role in its formative years, paving the way for the involvement in Shell Antilles & Guianas Limited and Sandals Resorts in the early 1990s, before Red Stripe Beer seized control in the late 1990s through the turn of the century. A Trinidad & Tobago-headquartered regional financial institution had been linked with the competition, but the WICB's pitch seems not to have hit the mark. Hosts and reigning champions Guyana open their defence against Windward Islands at Hampton Court, on October 17. SOURCE: JAMAICA-GLEANER.COM