‘Control cost of tournaments’ – NLA chairman

Cognisant of the competition posed by softball cricket to the main stream form of the game, which is played with a hard ball, chairman of the National Lotteries Authority, Murray Bullock, has offered a suggestion to lessen the poaching.{{more}}

Speaking at the annual prize giving ceremony of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association (SVGCA) recently, at Murray Heights Hotel conference room, Bullock suggested that the cost of running cricket tournaments should be rethought.

“It is untenable to have an event where officiating costs account for more than fifty per cent of the budget… It is something that must be addressed and addressed with some urgency,” Bullock said.

“We cannot continue to equate local domestic cricket with international cricket ….We have to sit down at the table and work out a middle ground,” he noted.

The National Lotteries Authority is the title sponsor of the premier and first divisions of the national cricket programme as well as the Neil Williams Twenty/20 Competition, which is also under the aegis of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association.

“We must work together as sponsors, the Cricket Association and the stakeholders in cricket to ensure the cost of operating these tournaments,” Bullock advised.

In making the comparison with softball cricket, Bullock reasoned: “We must bear in mind that it is very inexpensive to operate and run a softball competition … So invariably higher prize monies are paid to players to participate in softball cricket, hence there will always be a problem.”

Plans are in train for a national softball cricket showdown in 2015, in which the two top teams from the several competitions across St Vincent will compete.

Head of the interim national softball association — Israel Bruce, disclosed at the closing of the Greiggs Softball Cricket Competition, that the winner of the national competition would receive $10,000.

Bruce said that the competition would most likely be staged under the lights at the Victoria Park.(RT)