The West Indies Players Association (WIPA) launched its second Balls of Fire charity event at the Queen’s Park Oval yesterday and sports fans can look forward to extreme excitement from a number of regional cricketers on September 3.
President of WIPA Dinanath Ramnarine said the second Balls of Fire will involve a T20 cricket match and a football match and will take place on September 3 at the Queen’sPark Oval starting from 5.30pm.
The first of its kind held in 2009 was very well supported with over 25,000 patrons packing the Queen’s Park Oval. On that occasion a T&T team played a WIPA XI in a T20 clash and the 1989 Strike Squad also played a WIPA XI.
This time around, the T&T team will come up against strong WIPA XI captained by Chris Gayle,while the 2006 Soca Warriors will also compete against WIPA in a football match.
According to Ramnarine :”The last event was very successful and everyone was asking when we would host another. Well it has arrived and we are urging T&T to come out and support us again because this is all for charity. We are partnering with United Way and they are a local charitable organisation.”
Ramnarine also revealed that tickets will go on sale from August 19 with a cost of $80 for the Carib Stand and $60 elsewhere.There will also be special prices for the Trini Posse Stand.
National cricket captain Daren Ganga was on hand and urged fans to come out and bring out the kids. He said :”This would be our last practice match before we go off to India for the Champions League play-offs. We are urging the fans to come out and support the venture because we believe in helping out and giving back and this is an ideal situation to do that.
For Soca Warrior Brent Sancho said a number of players from the 2006 team will be on hand to play. “I have been in contact with players like Cyd Gray, Aurtis Whitley, Kelvin Jack and Stern John and they are very excited. We are going to keep building the squad and I can assure you the boys will be there to do there part.”
Dereck Hudson the chairman of United Way said they were very happy to partner with WIPA for the event because they have targeted to raise $6.2M for charity in 2011 and has so far raised $3.6M, so we are looking to build on this. “United Way has been in Trinidad and Tobago since 2004 and we have given $21M to local charities to far.”
