The Mercantile Cricket Association (MCA) – one of the country’s oldest cricket associations, announced that Link Natural Products (Pvt.) has tied up with them to sponsor its MCA 50-over Premier League 2025 cricket tournament, with white-ball players attired in colored clothing.
This was revealed by the officials from MCA and the flagship sponsor, during a media conference held at its clubhouse at Wijerama Mawatha on Friday (15).
Those featured in the four-team tournament which began on 28 July are Nawaloka Hospitals PLC, DFCC Bank, Expolanka Group, and Singer Sri Lanka PLC ‘A’.
According to the organisers, the ongoing tournament is conducted in a single group league in two stages; the round-robin stage consisting of six matches and the final round containing four matches.
The league phase of the event, which commenced late last month, concluded on Thursday (14) and the four teams, according to their league standings, are now set to advance to the crucial final round, which is to be conducted on the IPL system.
The modalities are as follows:
Match number seven: Qualifier one on Wednesday (20) between League number one and League number two, with the winner going straight to the final and the loser to play in the Qualifier two.
Match number eight: On the same day, in the eliminator one between League number three and League number four will be played, with the winning team to meet the loser of Qualifier one.
Match number nine: The Qualifier two will be played on 26 August, with the winners to qualify for the final.
Match number ten: The final between the winner of match number seven and winner of match number nine.
According to the tournament organisers, all matches will be supervised by an MCA-appointed match referee, with the officiating on-field umpires being assigned by the Association of Cricket Umpires Sri Lanka (ACUSL), and the officiating scorers assigned by the Sri Lanka Cricket Scorers.
The ball used for the tournament was the ‘Grays Cavalier’, white-ball donated by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC).
Among the special awards on offer will be for the categories of Best Batter, Best Bowler, Man of the Final, and Man of the Series.
The official sponsorship handing over also took place on the same day at the MCA Clubhouse.