l ST JOHN'S

Next year's Caribbean Twenty20 (CT20) Tournament, starting Sunday, January 6 in Trinidad and Tobago, will be played under a new format, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) announced yesterday.

The tournament will feature the seven regional teams in 23 matches. They will contest a non-elimination, preliminary competition, with a new route for the teams to reach the Grand Final, on Sunday, January 20 at the Beausejour Cricket Ground in St. Lucia.

Each team will play each other once, and the team finishing with the highest number of points after all the preliminary matches will automatically qualify for the Grand Final. The teams finishing second and third will qualify for the Playoff. The winners of the Playoff will be the other side to play in the Grand Final.

The winners of the tournament will qualify for a place in next year's Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20).

"This format will allow the regional teams to increase the number of matches in a form of the game which has become very popular around the world, and of which we are now world champions," said WICB Manager, Cricket Operations, Roland Holder.

"It was previously four, but now there are six matches each. This is in keeping with the WICB's mandate to increase the amount of matches that teams are playing at the regional level."

Reigning champions T&T will face long-standing rivals Jamaica in the opening match of next year's CT20, on home soil at the Queen's Park Oval on Sunday, January 6, following the official opening ceremony.

There will be two matches played on each of the succeeding days of the tournament, before the Playoff on Saturday, January 19, and the Grand Final on Sunday, January 20.

All matches will be broadcast live on ESPN.

The Playoff and the Grand Final will be preceded by Twenty20 Internationals between West Indies Women and South Africa Women. —CMC