For­mer out­stand­ing West In­dies fast bowler Ian Bish­op on Sat­ur­day used his life sto­ry to il­lus­trate to a large group of young crick­eters of what they can achieve in life de­spite what may seem in­sur­mount­able odds. Bish­op who holds the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the West In­di­an to achieve the fastest 100 wick­ets in Test crick­et be­fore his bril­liant ca­reer was cut short by a back in­jury told the young­sters that they should pur­sue their dreams and not be de­terred by the daunt­ing chal­lenges they may face along the way.

Now an ac­com­plished in­ter­na­tion­al tele­vi­sion crick­et com­men­ta­tor trav­el­ling around the world, Bish­op was speak­ing at a Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (T&TCB) or­gan­ised Un­der-13 and Un­der-15 coach­ing pro­gramme at the Bam­boo Set­tle­ment Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School. The pro­gramme was co-or­di­nat­ed by West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) Ter­ri­to­r­i­al De­vel­op­ment Of­fi­cer Ku­mar Ram­pat and in at­ten­dance on Sat­ur­day were Bal­dath Ma­habir, TT's rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the WICB Board; Ar­joon Ram­lal, gen­er­al-sec­re­tary of the T&TCB; Anisa Mo­hammed, WI and T&T women's crick­et cap­tain; and Kadi­jah Ameen, chair­per­son of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

Bish­op held his young au­di­ence in rapt at­ten­tion as he de­tailed how his love of crick­et was cul­ti­vat­ed in foot­ball lov­ing St Ann's, un­der the guid­ance of his men­tors Arnold Re­ece, his first coach and then Kirk Newal­lo, his el­der school cap­tain. "God has a plan for you and this in­cludes striv­ing for ex­cel­lence. He did not make a mis­take cre­at­ing any one of you. My les­son for you is that you do not have to come from a priv­i­leged back­ground to re­alise your dreams of be­com­ing the best you can be," said Bish­op. De­scribed by T&TCB sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Ram­lal ear­li­er as one of the finest fast bowlers pro­duced in the re­gion, Bish­op told how he coped when his fam­i­ly split when he was just four years old and of over­com­ing great hard­ship liv­ing a quar­ter-mile up a hill with no prop­er roads lead­ing to his home which was with­out run­ning wa­ter and oth­er ameni­ties that are now tak­en for grant­ed. "Don't let any­one tell you what you can't achieve. Once you have the love and de­sire what­ev­er your dream of be­com­ing in life, it is with­in your reach," said Bish­op. He im­pressed up­on the young­sters the im­por­tance of be­ing guid­ed by their coach­es and of the re­wards that hard work brings.

Bish­op said he has al­ways been im­pressed with the at­ti­tude of top West In­dies fast bowler Ravi Ram­paul who caught his eye at the Pe­rusal Crick­et Club and while first play­ing an a re­gion­al Un­der-15 com­pe­ti­tion in Guyana. "Ram­paul is a hum­ble crick­eter who has a thirst for knowl­edge. Look what he has achieved. It is a trib­ute to his hard work and abil­i­ty to lis­ten. Hard work com­bined with your strong be­lief in God will get you to your ob­jec­tive," said Bish­op. Bish­op al­so com­mend­ed the T&TCB for or­gan­is­ing the age group coach­ing pro­grammes which he said was cru­cial to un­earthing and nur­tur­ing tal­ent like fe­male crick­eter Mo­hammed and in a way that is what is re­quired to con­tribute to the re­in­state­ment of the West In­dies to the top rungs of the in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et lad­der. "I must con­grat­u­late the T&T Crick­et Board for their ini­tia­tive in de­vel­op­ing youth crick­et as this is the di­rec­tion we need at this time to re­build the re­gion­al team's for­tunes," said Bish­op.