On The Cricket Pitch

The future of Cayman Islands cricket

Philip Hackett

Friday, June 11, 2004

The future of Cayman Islands cricket has been on display over the past six weeks and the signs are encouraging.

The annual inter-primary cricket competition, organised by the Department of Education and sponsored by Cable and Wireless is nearing an end. The league final is scheduled for Friday 11 June when George Town Primary plays against Triple C.

George Town lost the final to West Bay last year but amazingly Triple C will be in the final having entered the competition for the first time in 2003 when they narrowly failed to qualify for the semi final.

No praise is too high for head coach at Triple C Jeffrey Newman, who has done a remarkable job in developing a meaningful cricket programme at the school. What is also particularly pleasing is that there are two female players, twin sisters Trisha and Tanya Meyerhoff, who not only play on the team but are excellent fielders. Trisha is also a tidy medium pace bowler and opens the batting as well.

Team captain Darren Conolly is a mature cricketer for his age. An accurate medium pacer, Darren is blessed with an unusual amount of patience for a cricketer with so little experience. Shehzad Hafiz, Shane Walton and Jeffrey Newman Jr are all young cricketers with a rich supply of talent.

Coaches Evans Hinkson and Horace Parker should also be proud of what they have been able to achieve at George Town Primary over the past two years. The most obvious progress made since last season has been in the batting of team captain and opening batsman Andre Douglas. Last year he concentrated solely on occupation of the crease. This year he has added other important elements to his game. Andre punishes almost anything slightly short of a length. His running between the wickets is another very positive feature of his play and his ability to read a game is exceptional for a player at this stage.

One of the most attractive batsmen on the George Town team is Jason Christian. He is a stroke-player who, unlike most primary school students, favours the offside. His shot selection is still suspect but when he tightens this area of his game lots of runs will flow from his bat. The main strike bowler for George Town has been their fast bowler Ryan Graham. Douglas, Christian, Dale Parker, possibly the fastest of George Town’s bowlers and Lamar Larond have also been excellent with the ball while Marc Brown seems to be a budding stroke player.

John A Cumber, Bodden Town, St Ignatius Catholic, Cayman Prep, Savannah, Red Bay and North East all have players with the potential to develop into good cricketers. Many of them will be on show in the cricket rally planned for Friday 18 June at the Smith Road Oval starting at 9 am and at the All Star game to be played between Zone A and Zone B on Friday 25 July at the same venue. That game is scheduled to start around 1.30 pm. It is my intention to feature many of these players in the coming weeks.

There is little doubt that the skills necessary to develop into outstanding cricketers are being well taught by coaches and teachers on the island but there are other qualities essential to the all-round development of these young sportsmen and women.

As teachers and coaches we must be aware that we are teaching more than sports skills. Those of us entrusted with the responsibility of molding young minds must first practice discipline and self control. To do otherwise makes it virtually impossible to instill such values in our children. If we don’t we are in danger of producing athletes capable of the type of unsportsmanlike behavior I witnessed at the Jimmy Powell Oval last Saturday when the Paramount cricket team refused to continue playing and conceded a match to the Schools because they disagreed with the decision of the umpires to give out their star batsman Deno McInnis.

It is a matter that will no doubt be taken to the disciplinary committee. Hopefully Paramount will move swiftly to minimize the damage they have done. What is especially unfortunate is that the incident took place in a match against the School team.

Now the attention turns to the Cayman Islands Cricket Association. All eyes will be all them to see how they handle this sensitive issue.

Back...