Jermaine Lannaman, Gleaner Writer

Florrette Blackwood (second left), senior director in the Ministry of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports, looks at the cricket gear with (from left) Lloyd Pommels, chairman, Social Development Commission (SDC), Deon Holness, from defending champions Littitz/Comma Pen, and Terrence Richards, National Sports Director at the SDC at the launch of the SDC's National Community Cricket Competition at the Police Officers' Club in Kingston on Tuesday. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

BACK BY popular demand, the Social Development Commission's (SDC) Nat-ional Twenty20 Competition was relaunched on Tuesday at the Police Officers' Club in Kingston.

The competition, which was inaugurated in 2006 to sensitise the public about the staging of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, has been reintroduced to the local sporting calendar following its successful staging, which drew large crowds, exposed players and raised comm-unity spirit and awareness throughout the island.

"At SDC we work to empower communities and sports is just one of the vehicle that we use and it is in this light that we are again staging this competition," Terrence Richards, national sports director at the SDC said.

Stakeholders

"It is a project that the SDC and the Ministry of Information, Youth, Culture and Sports is excited about and we expect a fun-filled competition for all stakeholders once again," he said.

To be held across all 14 parishes, the competition will involve 224 teams, 16 from each parish, and will be played at four venues in each parish. The 224 teams were decided after several intra-parish playoff series which had to be enacted due to the large number of entrants. Some parishes, it is understood, had up 30 teams.The competition will get cracking this weekend and is set to culminate on November 30 at the Alpart Sports Club in Nain, St Elizabeth. Unlike the first staging, which was held on a round-robin basis, this year's event will be held on a knockout format with the parish champions to vie for the title of being National Community Cricket Champions.

Defending champions Littitz/ Comma Pen will take on Mulgrave in the feature game of the first round on Sunday at the Alpart Cricket Ground in North St Elizabeth.

The winner of this year's competition will pocket $150,000 while the runner-up will walk away with $75,000. The third-place finisher will take home $30,000.