The first title of 2001 was won on 17th March when the Singapore Recreation Club (SRC) defeated the Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) to win the 30 Over Knockout Tournament which kick started the season.

The Division I League got underway on 18th March with seven teams competing. Every team plays each other twice on a home and away basis and the championship is expected to be completed by the end of July.

Ceylon Sports Club (CSC) who won the League title in 2000 will be led by Dinesh Chelvathurai and will be strengthened by the addition of national skipper Johann Pieris who is an explosive batsman. CSC will once again rely heavily on Buddhika Mendis who was the most outstanding batsman last year and further support can be expected from T.Ravichandran, Sarika Prasad, Silmy Nawaz and G.Anand. The pace attack will be spearheaded by S.Sritharan and Razi Sayyed with T.Ravichandran for support. The spin department is in the capable hands of Sarika Prasad, Dinesh Chelvathurai and Buddhika Mendis.

Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) which has been the most successful team in the last decade will once again be one of the favourites to win the title. They will be led by Zubin Shroff who is the lynch-pin of their batting line-up. Rahul Kapoor, N.Balasubramaniam, Dan Hayward and the new signing Kiran Deshpande will also be expected to be among the runs. Ben Farquharson and former Glamorgan paceman Alan Wilkins will share the new ball while the experienced spin trio of Grant Stanley, Stacey Muruthi and Kiran Deshpande are sure to pose problems to the opposition.

Singapore Recreation Club who have been threatening to win the title in recent years have got a shot in the arm with their win in the Knockout Finals. Steven Bell, the Malaysian international leads a team brimming with talent. Kapila Mendis, Steven Bell, Shazib Pervaiz, Sandeep Puri together with newcomers Dylan Dearing and Simon Davies constitute a formidable batting line-up while the bowling will be entrusted to Shazib Pervaiz, David Woolforde, Iftekhar Haider, R.Jayakumar and Chew Pok Cheong.

United World College (UWC) will once again be led by Gary Higgie and have been boosted by the addition of Stephen Lynch who played first class cricket for Auckland and also represented New Zealand A. The batting will revolve around Stephen Lynch and Jason Pascoe who represented the New South Wales junior state team and also played 1st grade cricket in Sydney. York Spence and Gary Higgie will also be expected to contribute with the bat. The McGowan brothers John and Don together with Gary Higgie will provide the pace while spinners Matthew Cox and Wayne Derrick are also expected to be among the wickets.

The Singapore Indian Association (IA) will be captained by opening bat Kuldeep Varma and he will rely on Harish Dongre, Sunder Mani, Sandeep Seth, Rupesh Singh and wicket keeper batsman T.Jayaraman to put runs on the board. IA will bank heavily on their spin attack and the quintet of K.R.Suresh, Sunder Mani, Sandeep Seth, Rupesh Singh and Manish Shah provides plenty of variety.

Club SCA (SCA) comprising entirely of youngsters performed creditably last year and are expected to improve further in 2001. National wicket keeper Zeng Renchun leads the team and will be expected to lead from the front. The addition of opening bat Suneth Mendis will add solidity to the batting. SCA's strength lies in their bowling attack which includes pacemen Rishi Kaul, Manbhir Singh, Suneth Mendis and Shezhad Haque together with spinners S.Mainuddin and Ivan Then.

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is the latest addition to Division I having been promoted from Division III in 1999 and Division II in 2000. Skipper Gaurav Tholia will bank on openers Sayan Chaudhuri and Sayan Ghosh and the middle order comprising C.Snehasis, Vivek Chopra, Vivek Vedagiri, Karthik Natarajan and himself to provide the runs. The bowling will be entrusted to Vikram Natarajan, Ramnik Bajaj, Sriram and spinner Gaurav Tholia.

The championship promises to be a closely contested affair with all the teams capable of winning the title. Consistency will be the key and several players will be looking to perform well and serve notice to the selectors before the ICC Trophy which is scheduled to be held in Toronto in June.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd