Cricket association buoyed by no-lockdown policy
JCA wants to go ahead with development plans for youngsters
Published:Sunday | January 23, 2022 | 12:08 AMHubert Lawrence - Gleaner Writer
THE JAMAICA Cricket Association (JCA) is encouraged by a recent government assurance regarding the end to COVID-19-related lockdowns.
According to O’Neil Cruickshank, the association’s cricket operations and development officer, the Institute of Sport (INSPORT), the Sports Development Foundation (SDF) and the JCA will be able to press ahead with a project designed to spark a West Indies revival.
Speaking during a recent press conference, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said, “I have been very clear in Parliament; very clear absolutely, gone overboard to say we are not going back to lockdowns.”
With the SDF providing $12.5 million, the JCA supplying cricket oversight and INSPORT on the ground in what will begin as a pilot project, primary-school children will be given a chance to fall in love with the game that the West Indies once dominated.
The pandemic has already delayed the start of the project from the Christmas term but no more.
GET BACK TO NORMAL
“Now that the Government has telegraphed that no lockdowns and they’re going to try to get back to normal as much as possible, it means that we can now go with much more assurance that we won’t have to be breaking and we have to be doing so many adjustments,” the JCA executive underscored on January 10.
The project will provide primary schoolers with soft plastic bats and tennis balls.
“It is largely to engage youngsters at the age of 6, 7, 8, to interact with the sport. It’s not going to be structured. It’s just to have them just hit ball, run, catch ball, however they want to do it. We just want to initiate some contact with the sport for these youngsters, and then after they have done that for about three years, they can get into the structured part,” Cruickshank outlined.
“A corridor or any concrete area in the school, any turf area, any grass area, it doesn’t require a big playing field to get it done,” he added.
“We don’t have as much of the youngsters playing the sport as before, and some of them, because it is structured so early, the interest kind of wanes quite quickly,” he added.
“So to just have them doing their natural thing, that is what we’re trying to do,” the JCA officer explained.
Understandably, COVID-19 protocols will be strictly observed.
“The first thing we talk about is protocols, you know, how we’re going to make this thing work, how we’re going to manage it, so without a doubt, that is the first priority, the safety of the kids,” he emphasised.
The project, which will be reviewed from time to time, will identify players with potential and provide them with more structured training. It will also establish cricket nurseries, equipped with concrete and clay batting strips.