TORONTO, Aug 10: First- class cricket will return to Canada this week after a gap of over 50 years when Canada and Bermuda meet in Toronto in the International Cricket Council (ICC) inaugural Intercontinental Cup match.

The three-day game is set to begin on Friday (Aug 13) at Sunnybrook Park. The last first-class match was played in Canada on Sept 8-10, 1951 when the Marylebone Cricket Club (England) led by R.W.V. Robins of Middlesex met Canada at the Toronto Cricket Club with MCC winning it by 141 runs.

The Canadian Cricket Association officials told Dawn on Monday that the Intercontinental Cup is a new tournament instituted by the ICC to further develop cricket in the non-Test playing nations of the world and is divided into four global groups, namely the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa.

TEAMS:

CANADA: John Davison (captain), Desmond Chumney, Zubin Zurkari, Ashish Bagai, Manzoor Chaudhary, Haninder Dhillon, Don Maxwell, Sunil Dhaniram, Kevin Sandher, Austin Codrington, Ashish Patel, Umar Bhatti.

BERMUDA: Clay Smith, (captain), Dennis Archer, Delyone Borden, Jekon Edness, Reginald Tucker, Oliver Pitcher, Dwayne Leverock, Irvine Romaine, Stephen Outerbride, Wendell White, Ryan Steede, Kevin Hurdle, Saleem Mukudden.