A collaborative effort between the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, Cricket West Indies, the Guyana Cricket Board and Republic Bank Guyana Limited, has resulted in the official launch of the Five for Fun kids cricket yesterday at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, Homestretch Avenue.
The new format targets children aged eight to 11 years and was successfully introduced last year in St. Lucia.
This initiative bowled off yesterday with four schools participating, St. Pius, St. Margaret’s, Bel Air and Rama Krishna Primaries.
According to President of the Guyana Cricket Board, Bissondyal Singh, the collaborative grassroots cricket initiative is timely and essential in rebuilding full participation in cricket and will be the foundation of the national and regional cricket development pathway.
He said that this is consistent with his board’s five-year cricket development plan.
The programme, said Singh, “Will give children the opportunity to be expressive while building core qualities of leadership patience, teamwork, dealing with adversity, confidence, time management, commitment, responsibility and much more.”
He added, “Cricket is a game that can encourage positive behavioral change in our young people and I’ve seen it. Cricket skills learned are transferable to other areas of life, removing negative influence, like antisocial peer groups, substance abuse, low self-esteems simple boredom and unhealthy lifestyle during the pandemic,
which you must recognize has not fully gone away and especially with the closure of schools and classrooms nationally and worldwide.”
The GCB boss indicated that the next phase will be physical education and training approach which will be taught from the July 1-3 before the Republic Bank Five for Fun Summer Camp from July 8 to August 12 with a number of hubs in each county. This will see 15 zones comprising of 75 schools.
The Five for Fun County Festival will be from October 3-7 and the national finals on October 14 which will be held in Georgetown.
Singh revealed that there will also be an advanced cricket talent camp from October 26-28 which will enable and identify talented and outstanding cricketers from the programme.
Minister of Education, Priya Manikchand said that the ministry is keen on balancing sports and academics and with the addition of cricket into the school system, the ministry now has two mainstream sports integrally involved in a structured manner.
Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson Jr., commended the partners of the bold move. He said that his ministry had already spent $200M last year and had budgeted $250M this year for community grounds. This comes from the $3.2B that is expected to be spent on sports alone.
Meanwhile, Derwin Howell, Executive Director of Republic Financial Holdings commented, “In every corner of the Caribbean, you are reminded that cricket is much more than a sport.
It is part of our cultural lifeblood. From CPL to the school playground, Republic Bank continues to support cricket and, in so doing, fulfil the dreams of kids and the passions of some many citizens.”
The rules and format of the Five for Fun initiative are designed around two basic principles, fun and inclusion.
Each game involves five players per team playing five six-ball overs each. Each batter will face an over from a single bowler. If the batter is out, they will still face their allotted over but three runs will be deducted from the team score.
In attendance of the event were West Indies Women head coach, Courtney Walsh and former West Indies women captain, Merissa Aguilleira.
