The 2016 Sco­tia­bank Kid­dy crick­et pro­gramme has been ex­tend­ed to 100 schools in T&T, from the pre­vi­ous mark of 48.This was an­nounced by Sco­tia­bank's Se­nior Vice-pres­i­dent and Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Anya Schnoor at the launch of the 16th edi­tion at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC), Bal­main yes­ter­day.

With the young par­tic­i­pants look­ing splen­did in their crick­et gear, rep­re­sent­ing the dif­fer­ent dis­tricts in Trinidad present, Schnoor said: "I am cer­tain we all felt an im­mense sense of joy when the West In­dies U-19 team emerged as the win­ners in the re­cent­ly held ICC U-19 Crick­et World Cup. Sev­er­al mem­bers of the team who took the re­gion to its first ever ti­tle at this lev­el are alum­ni of Sco­tia­bank's Kid­dy Crick­et pro­gramme.

"We re­main proud to be as­so­ci­at­ed with a feed­er pro­gramme such as this and it is be­cause of the re­mark­able strides the pro­gramme has seen here in Trinidad and To­ba­go that to­day, I am pleased to an­nounce that this year, the pro­gramme has been ex­pand­ed. Boys and girls in twice as many schools will now ben­e­fit from the Sco­tia­bank Kid­dy Crick­et pro­gramme.

"As such we have 100 schools par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gramme, from, the eight school dis­tricts. Of this 52 are par­tic­i­pat­ing for the very first time. We are in­deed pleased we are able to reach so many new schools year on year and for this, I take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to recog­nise the hard work and ded­i­ca­tion of the TTCB in en­sur­ing the ad­vance­ment and con­tin­u­a­tion of the sport lo­cal­ly."

Join­ing Schnoor at the launch was Mar­cia Gaudet Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Hu­man Re­sources at Sco­tia­bank and Cindy Mo­hammed Man­ag­er–Pub­lic and Cor­po­rate Af­fairs, Spon­sor­ship and Phil­an­thropy. The bank al­so in­vit­ed mem­bers of the T&T Red Force crick­et team head­ed by Ja­son Mo­hammed and they showed up much to the ex­cite­ment of the young­sters. Be­fore the on­field ac­tion start­ed, the chil­dren used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak to and seek au­to­graphs from the play­ers.

Bal­dath Ma­habir an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the TTCB said the bank has shown that they have the best in­ter­est of West In­dies crick­et at heart and thanked them for stay­ing the course for 16 years.

"Sco­tia­bank has been a great part­ner to West In­dies crick­et and I am sure they will be around for a while. They have done a lot for the de­vel­op­ment of the sport in the re­gion and they must be proud this morn­ing to see some of the na­tion­al play­ers who at some time over the last six­teen years would have been part of the pro­gramme at their schools."

The Kid­dy Crick­et pro­gramme fo­cus­es on ba­sic skill de­vel­op­ment, geared at learn­ing to play the game in a fun and ex­plo­rative man­ner, while in­duc­ing strong foun­da­tion com­po­nents of team­work and lead­er­ship.

There has been steady growth over the last three years and with the banks' com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue the pro­gramme that num­ber is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to grow.

The Sco­tia­bank Kid­dy Crick­et pro­gramme is an im­por­tant start­ing point for any young male/fe­male who plans to play crick­et and de­vel­op a love for the game. While the pro­gramme is fo­cused on chil­dren de­vel­op­ing ear­ly crick­et skill sets, the lead­er­ship and aca­d­e­m­ic el­e­ments en­sures the de­vel­op­ment of well round­ed stu­dents.