Philton Williams emerged the Un­der-19 Play­er of the Year at the Dig­i­cel Har­vard Crick­et Coach­ing Clin­ic which closed on Sun­day at the Har­vard Crick­et Club. For his out­stand­ing show at the six-month clin­ic, Williams was al­so in­vit­ed to train with the na­tion­al U-19 team.Coach­es, par­ents and play­ers came to­geth­er to cel­e­brate the par­tic­i­pants had come this year at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the clin­ic which for more than 40 years, has pro­vid­ed young­sters ages 5-18 with valu­able train­ing in crick­et fun­da­men­tals and in­valu­able life skills, lay­ing the foun­da­tion for the par­tic­i­pants to be­come crick­et cham­pi­ons and well-round­ed adults.Dig­i­cel has part­nered with Har­vard for six in­stall­ments of the pro­gramme, pro­vid­ing cru­cial sup­port that al­lows the Clin­ic's dis­ci­pline and char­ac­ter-build­ing ef­forts to con­tin­ue. Those de­vel­op­men­tal as­pects are just as im­por­tant to the pro­gramme as drills, as ev­i­denced by the sen­ti­ments ex­pressed by the speak­ers present at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny.

Brigadier Gen­er­al Carl A Al­fon­so, pres­i­dent of the Har­vard Club, praised the chil­dren for their ded­i­ca­tion through­out the clin­ic, re­mind­ing the ones who did not re­ceive tro­phies not to be dis­cour­aged."Your time will come," he re­as­sured them. "You just con­tin­ue work­ing as hard as you have since Jan­u­ary." De­clar­ing that "the com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence in sport is one of the best choic­es you can make," fea­tured speak­er Ronald Rogers, strength and con­di­tion­ing coach for the na­tion­al team, as­sured the youth that the re­wards of the nec­es­sary hard work and ded­i­ca­tion would be "mag­nan­i­mous."

Giv­en the mul­ti­tude of awards pre­sent­ed, it is clear that the play­ers iden­ti­fied with the mes­sage sen­ti­ments of the speak­ers. Sev­er­al of this year's play­ers have been cho­sen to rep­re­sent zon­al teams, while a se­lect few like Williams have re­ceived the op­por­tu­ni­ty to try out for na­tion­al teams.Dig­i­cel re­ceived much praise on the day for its long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to crick­et de­vel­op­ment in gen­er­al and to the clin­ic in par­tic­u­lar.In­dar Ram­goolam, head coach, de­scribed Dig­i­cel's spon­sor­ship as "a great help" which al­lows the clin­ic to take the play­ers on more in­ter and in­tra-is­land tours.

Pen­ny Gomez, Dig­i­cel's com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, praised the play­ers for their "ster­ling ef­forts" and ex­pressed the com­pa­ny's ful­fill­ment in its long-stand­ing re­la­tion­ship with the Har­vard Club. Re­mind­ing the play­ers that the sky is the lim­it, Gomez en­cour­aged them to take full ad­van­tage of what they have learnt and ap­ply it to their game as they de­vel­op their skills.