Newfoundland and Labrador captain Rahul Vashishtha is getting his chance to fully participate in Cricket Canada’s national T20 tournament.
Vashishtha, who plays for the Avengers in the local summer league and has been a dominant player in Newfoundland cricket the last half dozen years, is one of just six players from Quebec and Atlantic Canada chosen for the tournament, which begins Monday in Toronto. The four-day event will be used to select players for the national high-performance programme and potentially for Canada’s senior men’s team.
Selected players are divided into four teams, which will them compete in the tourney.
Vashishtha was actually chosen to participate in last year’s national T20, but suffered a knee injury in the opening match and was unable to take part in the remainder of the tourney.
“I am very excited to get a second chance after last year’s disappointment and I am honoured to have this opportunity to represent Newfoundland and Labrador at this level. I will do my best to make the province proud,” said Vashishtha, who recently completed his business administration degree at Memorial University.
T20 refers to a shortened version of cricket’s traditional long-lasting games; it keeps teams to single innings, which are restricted to a maximum of 20 overs — hence the name. First introduced in 2002, it has meant game times that fall more into line with those of other sports, such as soccer, basketball, baseball and hockey, and therefore has become very popular for competitions such as the nationals in Toronto and the Eastern Canadians in Charlottetown, P.E.I., next weekend.
Vashishtha, who was MVP of the 2017 Eastern Canadians, will fly directly to Prince Edward Island from Toronto to captain a NL team that also includes Vishal Abhishek, Maanik Arora, Jaspreet Bajwa, Madhu Bandara, player/coach Nick Baxter, Dario Cox, Mukul Dhawan, Adeel Ilyas, assistant coach Gurman Khurana, Praveen Manhas, Rakesh Negi, Muhammmed Ali Raza and Akashdeep Singh.
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