QUEEN’S/ NEW YORK: USA – There has been an overwhelming response by teams that want to take part in the 11th US Open T20 tournament which takes place in Fort Lauderdale from December 18 to 23.
The most popular T20 tournament in North America has seen some of the world’s best T20 players participate and teams have been lining up to come in for the latest edition, since registration opened recently. At the moment the count is 56 the number of teams that have registered online to participate in the tournament. Out of this number 24 teams have already paid up their subscription to come on board as they want to make sure that they are in.
This information was forthcoming from CCUSA official Asif Shams. He also outlined that a total of 32 Youth teams from around the world have also registered and more are asking to come onboard.
Chairman of Cricket Council USA (CCUSA) Mahammad Qureshi said he was very happy with the response and he and his committee would try their best to facilitate a large number of teams. “We have gotten such a great response with months still to go before the tournament that the management of the tournament is in the process of trying to decide how we can increase the number of teams taking part. This would incur a further cost to us but we always put money as secondary because our aim and objective for this tournament is to expose as many cricketers in the US to meaningful competition.
“Our tournament is highly rated and we spend a lot in bringing in foreign talent to play with the locals. We always think that once we give our players the exposure to play against top foreign international players, they will improve their game and hence US cricket will benefit as a result.”
Last year world rated T20 players like Sunil Narine, Lendl Simmons, Evin Lewis, Andre Russell, Muhammad Ali Khan and Nicholas Pooran took part in the tournament. A number of top foreign players will again be making the trip to the US for the 11th edition.
