A major sporting partnership was struck up yesterday between two sporting giants in different disciplines, Argentina and Barbados, for the benefit of each country.
Barbados will help Argentina develop its cricket while in return the South Americans will assist the Barbadians in terms of developing their football.
Argentina, one of the most powerful footballing countries, will have cricket on a larger scale in the country of 45 million people. Barbados, who has produced the most cricketing legends in the world, will then get a boost in their football development.
President of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA), Conde Riley, and president of the Argentina Cricket Association (ACC) Hernan Pereyra signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at the Kensington Oval in Barbados yesterday to begin the process.
Riley, who is also a Cricket West Indies (CWI) director, said: "A couple years ago we took a decision to increase the number of coaches we have here in Barbados. At the moment, we have 30 Level III coaches. This surplus will now be beneficial in helping Argentina develop their cricket. We will be sending top quality coaches to work with them across there to structure coaching programmes.
"The information we have received from Roland Butcher who as a BCA director visited Argentina is that cricket is very much present in Argentina and the talent is there to develop."
Pereyra said: "We are very happy to enter into this arrangement with Barbados. They have a wonderful cricket structure here and we need to get that expertise. We have a lot of people playing cricket, especially in schools back in Argentina but then they give it up. We have a great English tradition of cricket in Argentina and a number of cricket clubs. We need to have good coaches come and work with our young cricketers, so we can put cricket on the map in South America."
Argentina's Ambassador to Barbados Gustavo Pandiani said: "What we are doing here is putting Sir Garry Sobers and Diego Maradona together. They sent their cricket legend and we sent our football legend to the benefit of both countries. We want players from Argentina to come to Barbados to play in their cricket tournament to get the coaching and experience. They want their footballers to come to Argentina and for us to send coaches here to make their football competitive."