Brantford-Brant Premier League T10 held its Inaugural cricket event at the Waterworks Cricket grounds in Brantford on Friday, May 16, 2025.
The event, which kicked off the 2025 season, will be running every Friday until October.
With a total of four teams competing through the season, as well as being supported by a handful of sponsors, the founder of the league, Rajesh Prasad, is looking forward to growing the sport’s appeal in the community
“We rebranded this to Brantford-Brant Premier League, calling it T10, which is ten-over format using a tennis ball. We have really grown the league in the last few years… and we want to be ambassadors for the sport in our community…to promote cricket and appeal to people who want to play it by spreading the word across [multiple] regions including Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Hamilton, Woodstock, and Simcoe,” explained Prasad.
Kris Kartick, an executive of the league, further explained the purpose of the league.
“We have four locally-based teams competing in the league this year…with players coming from areas such as Brantford, Hamilton and Woodstock. The plan for this year is just to get it up and running and get more exposure, and then next year we are looking to expand,” Kartick said. “Most of the players here play hardball cricket…so this is a tennis ball league which has been launched in order to attract more players…we also found that new players are moving into Brantford and Brant County and are looking for a place to play [and] that’s why we created additional teams.”
AJ, who is the co-captain of the Phoenix Squad, will be competing against the 247 Smashers, Emeralds Sports Club and Brantford Spartanz throughout the season.
“This tournament has given us a great opportunity to play cricket…it has spread through word-of-mouth [and] initially there were only a few teams from Brantford…now…we are getting players from other areas,” he said. “We also have players who sometimes bring their children watch these matches…and we see children getting involved in the sport down the road [and] we can start coaching them….and [eventually] starting a league for their age group,” he noted.
Prasad, is also looking to help grow the league through sponsors from businesses in the community.
“What we have done is create several sponsorship options to help involve local businesses. I’ve been contributing from my own 247 Sporting Brand for cricket over the years… and this year, Broadway Manufacturing has come to support us along with Fresh‘N Fast and Babus Mart,” Prasad said. “With this league, we will have more opportunities to attract new sponsors to help us and support the game. With cricket or any sport in general…sponsorship is needed. And this year, because of our sponsors we have larger prize monies awarded and it also gives us a chance to bring in more teams.”
However, growth for the league as well as the sport is on the horizon in the region as Kartick explains.
“We continue to use Waterworks Park to play [and] we’re going to have Shellards Lane community coming on board for the 2026-27 season… when it comes to the league and cricket in the community, just seeing the interest from players is great…[but] we envision this to be a family affair. Eventually we’re going to have the families coming out [and] we’re going to make it a fun event. We want to start having children play competitive cricket too [and we looking to hopefully] establish a women’s team in Brantford and Brant County in the near future,” he said.
Nevertheless, Prasad continues to see positive engagement from Brantford and County of Brant residents.
“The reaction and support from the community has been great. We had Larry Brock [MP for Brantford-Brant] coming down and helping support us in this inaugural first game. We are also looking for the league to attract new sponsorship opportunities. [As well] we want to spread this sport and get teams to play on weekends [and] not just Fridays…eventually, looking at maybe growing the league to around eight to ten teams competing on different days which we are looking at making happen,” concluded Prasad.
