Manchester Lions' David Powell is bowled all over the shop during the Red Stripe Championship Twenty20 cricket final against St Catherine Saints at Sabina Park.

After a couple years of planning, the inaugural Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) Red Stripe Twenty20 Knockout Championship finally came off and, according to the organisers, it was a tremendous success.

"The reasons for the introduction of this competition was to use it as our marketing tool and we have seen tremendous success," was the response of JCA president, Paul Campbell, about the competition, which saw large crowds turning out and brought renewed interest among key stakeholders of the game.

"We have to thank Red Stripe for their vision, commitment and support through a three-year $30 million sponsorship and look forward in anticipation for the coming years, which we expect to be bigger and better," he added.

The competition, which feature all the island's top cricket clubs, was played over five rounds, with St Catherine CC, who used the moniker Saints, emerging champions ahead of two-day JCA Super Cricket League champions Manchester Lions.

It was not so much the matches and results that stole the headlines, but the organisation and implementation of cricket's newest version which, as has been the case internationally, raised enthusiasm and support far and wide.

"In hindsight, I believe that this is something that the JCA benefited from extremely. I believe operationally the whole four weeks of the competition was a huge success," said the championship's league director, Oneil Cruickshank.

"I do understand that there are some things that some teams and players were not too pleased with, like the fact that due to the format some of the teams only played one match and some of parishes wanted a piece of the competition.

"I won't make a commitment as to whether or not there will be any changes next year, but the suggestions will certainly be part of our review process," he added.

Campbell, whose administration is marking its first year in office this month, also said, given the response to the championship, he feels the sport now has a legitimate tool to reinvent itself locally.

ideal format

"At present, we are hard-pressed with the older version of the game, but this format seems to be ideal and is in line to compete with basketball and football and so on, primarily because of its entertainment value to spectators, participants and sponsors," said Campbell.

"Moving forward we plan to partner with the Social Development Commission and its community competitions and the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association so as to use the format to enhance interest and participation in the sport islandwide," he added.

- J.L.

Manchester Lions' David Powell is bowled all over the shop during the Red Stripe Championship Twenty20 cricket final against St Catherine Saints at Sabina Park.- Ian Allen/Photographer