GSCL Gears up for 2010

Five new teams added to league roster - Season begins April 11

It’s only February, but Georgia’s cricketing community is abuzz with a new level of excitement as the defending South East Region (SER) champions, GSCL, gear up for the upcoming season.  With the addition of five new teams – Conrad Hunte Atlanta, International, Lawrenceville, Nashville CC, and Wanderers cricket clubs – the league will witness a significant growth from which a lot of new talent is expected to develop.  They will join the already impressive star studded rosters that include players such as Garrett, Redwood, Murray, Hoillett, Hooper, Lodhi, Burnett, Reddy, Khan and coaches and managers such as Clayton Lambert, Desmond Lewis, and Junior Williams.

Even though the League has lost two teams that participated last season (Stone Mountain and Georgia Southern University have withdrawn from competitive cricket) a net gain of three teams is realized as the league’s roster expands to twelve clubs.  Also, at least three new playing fields will become available to facilitate the increase in number of games to be played.  A field or stadium with lights is also in the mix as a night of “Twenty20 Under the Lights” is high on the agenda. Current planning is for a schedule that will entertain four competitions and the SER tournament.

The League’s Championship Forty-Overs competition will feature two restructured zones that are geared to provide highly competitive cricket. Two time defending champions, Tropical Sports club heads Gayle while last years finalist, McNair Lions, sits atop Hunte Zone. The zones are as follows:

It is expected that all teams will participate in the high-energy Twenty20 competition and also in the Forty-Five Overs Knockout. This season’s Country/Country competition will be a one-weekend carnival affair of Twenty20 games with teams representing Barbados, Combined Islands, Guyana, Jamaica, Pakistan, and USA. Two additional teams, India and International, are also being targeted for this competition. In June, the defending SER champions will travel to South Florida for the annual regional tournament. With the burden of proving that last year’s victory was no fluke, the league will have to make every effort to ensure that the team will be at full strength so as to retain the title.

So while the Bermuda grass is still dormant, and the robins have not yet returned and it’s just one week since the big snow storm - the umpires are in seminars and taking tests, landscapers and groundsmen are measuring fields and designing pitches, recruiting fervor is high, rosters are under close examination, gears are being bought, the trash talking has begun, and many teams head south to Florida for spring training and warm-up games.

GSCL 2010 is just around the corner.