Club cricketers get chance to line up with NatWest Blast T20 champions Club cricketers are being given the chance to play alongside players from defending NatWest T20 Blast champions Northamptonshire and help raise money for the Professional Cricketers’ Association Professional Cricketers’ Trust. The Greene King IPA T20 Pro-Am finals day will be played under floodlights at Northamptonshire’s Wantage Road headquarters on August 20. The tournament will replicate the format of the NatWest T20 Blast with four teams competing in finals day with players selected through an IPL-style draft. Since March players, coaches and physios from over 500 cricket clubs in Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire have been registering their applications, which include their player profiles, for inclusion in the draft. The draft closes on July 1 with the draft taking place on July 12. Each of the squads will comprise 14 players, two of which will be nominated Northamptonshire players, either present or recently-retired county players. The team owners will then work with their drafted coaches, along with a professional coach allocated to them by Northamptonshire, to select 11 players from the pool that registered in order on draft night. The team owners will also have the option of adding a wild card signing to their team which could be either another professional player sourced by themselves In addition to giving club cricketers the opportunity to play on county ground alongside professional players the T20 Pro-Am will also raise money for the PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust and Runs 4Funds, a local fund-raising initiative founded by Northamptonshire all-rounder Steven Crook. The PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust helps past and present professional cricketers and their immediate family members in their hour of need by providing vital funding for operations and helping those who are having difficulty adjusting to life after cricket to find an alternative career The aim is to roll out the T20 Pro-Am to six counties next year and to the other counties in 2019. Further information about the T20 Pro-Am and the benefits of managing a team can be found at: www.T20proam.com.
