Bequia Cricket to pursue youth involvement

The Bequia Cricket Association (BCA) will be moving ahead with plans to get youths involved in the sport on that Grenadine island.{{more}}

President of the BCA Fitz-Gerald Sutton told SEARCHLIGHT this recently.

Sutton said that soon, the association will implement plans to get youngsters enthused about the sport.

“The Association will put measures in place to get teenagers involved in the game … as you see this form of the game (20/20) is taking off,” Sutton said.

The BCA president said that part of the process will involve the erection of a batting cage at the Lower Bay Sports Centre.

“Once that is done, we can really put some work into our youth programme, where we can develop batsmen and bowlers as cricket is a highly skilled game,” Sutton added.

The modern Bequia T/20 Cricket competition, which started in 2007, sees few youngsters from the island participating, in comparison with the numbers from the mainland.

Sutton holds the view that the current regulations which allow for persons not resident on the island to participate, help in the development of the sport on Bequia.

“I like to see the cricket on Bequia be diverse, inviting all levels … it can only be good for cricket, because there are not enough skilled players,” Sutton confessed.

He believes that the skilled players who are basically guest players, could excite the youngsters and get them to want to play the sport.

“If you leave something like this alone on the local base, it may evolve into something real nice; it peaks, then becomes stagnant,” Sutton reasoned.

Sutton, however, noted, that there are by-laws of the competition which prevent persons from turning up at critical stages, for example the final and semi finals and be eligible to participate.

The BCA head stated that the sport continues to grow in popularity on the island, as evidenced by the crowds which turn out at the matches on Saturdays and Sundays, with some of the teams having good fan bases.

Sutton said that teams must continue to work on their organizational structure and general conduct, in order to continue to attract sponsorship.

The 2012 edition saw the participation of nine teams. Knights Trading Aussies claimed the title for the third successive year.(RT)