A number of past West Indies, Jamaica and international cricket stalwarts are down to compete in this year's fifth annual Michael Holding Masters Cricket Tournament, which will bowls off today at Alpart, Melbourne, Ultimate Oval and St Ann Bauxite Company, formerly Kaiser, at 10 a.m.

The tournament, which is being held under the patronage of Holding, who oversees the event, will see the defending champions New York Masters with Errol Chambers, Michael Pusey and Austin Hutchinson taking on St Elizabeth Masters, who will parade Wayne Bowes, Member of Parliament Frank Witter and Paul Bloomfield, in the feature game at Apart Sports Club.

Elsewhere, Melbourne Masters, with Courtney Walsh and guest players Jimmy Adams and Robert Haynes, will tackle Tri-State Masters, with Dwight Meikle, Leroy Skeen and Ian Grizzle, at Melbourne Oval, while Ultimate Masters with Cleveland Davidson will square off with Trindad and Tobago's Masters, with former West Indies player and coach, Gus Logie.

Social Development Commission Masters and Caribbean Masters, who will include Anthony Boyke, Omar Linton and Curtis Smith, will round off the day's fixtures at St Ann Bauxite.

"The tournament was born out of a sports-tourism thrust in Jamaica and Barbados during the slow winter season and to help and develop young cricketers with their cricket, personal and academic development," said United States-based tournament organiser, Hutchinson, of World Masters Cricket.

"This year we will be helping 18 youngsters with their scholastic and academic development. We will also, during each game, conduct coaching clinics led by Logie with a number of players, who participated in this year's Jamaica National Building Society Under-13 cricket programme and at the final present two Holding scholarships valued at $50,000 each," he added.

The tournament, which was last held in Jamaica in 2007, and last year in Barbados, will see each team contesting three games across two zones, with the winners and runners up advancing to semi-finals and final.

The second set of matches will be played tomorrow, with the third round scheduled for next Tuesday, the semi-finals next Thursday and the final next week Saturday.

Games on

New York Masters vs St Elizabeth Masters at Alpart Oval

Ultimate Masters vs Trinidad Masters at Ultimate Oval

Melbourne Masters vs Tri-State Masters at Melbourne

SDC Masters vs Caribbean Masters at St Ann Bauxite