The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports/National Sports Commission’s first ever East Coast Under-17 Cricket Camp, which was held at the Enterprise Busta Sports Club, came to a close yesterday with two cricket matches played by the participants in the three-day camp.

The first match-up, a six overs affair, went down between the female team and the junior males. Winning by 10 runs the juniors outclassed the females.  Opening the batting, the junior team accumulated 38 runs from their six overs while the females could only reply with 28 runs from their six overs.

The junior team was almost  single-handedly led by batsman Cameron Hookumchand, who scored the majority of the team’s runs with a massive 32.

The next all boys match was a ten overs-a-side, and featured “Team A” opening the batting to accumulate 84 runs in their allotted overs. “Team B” replied by covering their needed 85 runs in 9.1 overs.

The runs tally for “Team B” was headed by Vivian Albert who put up 26 runs, and best bowler was Bashkar Beepat who took 3 wickets for 20 runs.

The camp, which began on Tuesday, was conducted by cricket coaches Latchman Yadram and Daniel Richmon.

At the camp, Yadram said, the coaches focused on teaching the participants the elementary aspects of the game as the majority of them were not well versed in  proper conduct in cricket. They were also given assistance by Jitlall Jowharilall who taught the wicket-keeping feature of the camp.

Additionally, other subject areas were also included  in the programme. The participants on Tuesday were involved in an awareness session on HIV/AIDS led by  Jaigobin Mohabir, and they also had sessions on road safety and discipline conducted by  Richmon. In addition, Harvey Harry gave a presentation on leadership principles to the participants.
According to Yadram, the camp which started with 50 children on Tuesday expanded to 53 participants on Wednesday and ended with 57 yesterday. Participants came from areas between Strathspey and Haslington.

Yardram said he would encourage more females to get into the sport and he also appealed to those older ones who know the game to come out and assist the younger generation in getting involved.

Yadram added that he would like to encourage parents to send their children to take part in sports and to come out also to support them in the field.

For kids who are interested in taking their skills beyond the summer camp, Yadram noted that the club has a cricket team and conducts training sessions in the  afternoons.

Yadram said that while the cricket team is an all-male one they have hopes of launching a female team once there is a regular body of female players.  The club also plays football and it has facilities for table tennis and volleyball and there are plans to rekindle interest in these games.

At a closing ceremony yesterday morning at the venue, the participants were presented with participation certificates and top performers of the camp received cricket bats.

Attending the ceremony was Director of the NSC, Neil Kumar, who stated that he was very satisfied with the turnout at the camp which drew participants from both sexes and different races.

However, Kumar noted that two years ago  the ministry had renovated the club’s facilities, in particular the volleyball court, but he was not happy with the current state of the area, and the fact that it was not being utilized..

In the meantime, Stabroek Sport spoke to some of the female participants who said that the camp had done well to spark their interest in the games, and they would particularly be looking forward to  playing  cricket.