CATEGORY:SPORTS
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By Wallace J.A (St. Andrew's correspondent)

GRENADA – The inaugural Stanford 20/20 Tournament is presently down to four teams, each of which will be vying for a place in the finals on Sunday August 13, 2006. The winning team in the finals will take home a whopping US$1,000,000 while the second place team will collect US$500,000. The cricket boards of the top two teams will receive US$200,000 and US$100,000 respectively, which must be used to develop and improve the cricket facilities in those countries. The teams making it through the preliminary and quarterfinal rounds of the tournament to the semi finals are Grenada, Nevis, Trinidad and Guyana.

Many people throughout the Caribbean had written off Grenada as a team that was going to exit the tournament in the early rounds, however, Team Grenada was able to prove these skeptics wrong. After comprehensively defeating Dominica in their preliminary game, a confident Grenadian team, led by the wily veteran leg-spinner, Rawle Lewis, went on to force St.Vincent & The Grenadines out of the competition in the quarter-final round played on July 26.The victory, by 12 runs, came through the Duckworth/Lewis Method after rain prematurely ended the match. Grenada was on 79 for three off 10.1 overs in pursuit of SVG’s 122 for seven off 20 overs.

The Grenada 20/20 Cricket Team’s current position as one of the top four teams in the regional tournament should not be taken lightly because it was certainly not a walk in the park for the bunch of talent and committed cricketers. The creditable performance of each member of the team has won the admiration of almost every Grenadian, many leading cricket commentators, and lovers of cricket from all over the region.

The Stanford 20/20 Tournament started off with nineteen regional teams: Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nevis, St.Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St.Vincent & The Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago and The US Virgin Islands. The tournament is structured as a single elimination knockout competition hence the reason why 15 of the 19 teams have already been sent home. At the end of the regional 20/20 competition a Stanford Super Star team will be selected by the legends to play one match each against two world-class teams to be named. This will be a winner take-all competition and the grand prize in each match will be an astonishing US$5,000,000.

To make it through to the finals, Grenada would first have to get pass the mighty Guyanese on August 10. The cricket match commences at 7pm. Many Grenadians are of the view that even though Guyana is a regional superpower in cricket, it might be easier to get pass them than the Jamaicans, who had a poor game against Guyana on Saturday July 29, with their star-studded team. The Jamaicans are no longer contenders for the top spot.

The Grenadian Cricket Team is presently hard in training as they try to upgrade their physical and mental preparedness ahead of their semi final encounter. It is expected that many Grenadians, both at home and abroad, will be at the Stanford Cricket Ground in Antigua on Thursday August 10 to witness this thrilling encounter.

Grenadianconnection will like to wish the Grenadian cricketers all the best in their next cricket game against the Guyanese.