A rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sec­ondary Schools’ Crick­et League (SS­CL) team will com­pete in an Un­der-17 crick­et tour­na­ment in Col­orado, USA, for thanks to the sup­port of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (NGC). The tour­na­ment is sched­uled to run from to­mor­row (Ju­ly 28) to Au­gust 8.

On Fri­day, in an in­ti­mate, in-house event at its Point Lisas Head Of­fice, NGC’s chair­man, Ger­ald Ramdeen, pre­sent­ed a cheque worth $40,000 to the SS­CL rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Un­der-17 team mem­bers, which in­clud­ed two play­ers -Levi Ghan­ny and Sachin Nand­lal.

NGC’s con­tri­bu­tion en­sures that the trav­el and ac­com­mo­da­tion ex­pens­es of our team are met.

Al­so present were NGC’s act­ing pres­i­dent Ed­mund Sub­ryan and vice pres­i­dent Cor­po­rate Ser­vices, Gre­go­ry Sealy and SS­CL rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Keele Lawrence-Chan, SS­CL Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary and Wes­ley Dookhoo, SS­CL pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer (PRO).

Com­ment­ing on the ra­tio­nale be­hind this part­ner­ship, Sub­ryan said, “NGC’s de­ci­sion to spon­sor SS­CL re­flects the com­pa­ny’s long­stand­ing com­mit­ment to sport and youth de­vel­op­ment. In ad­di­tion to sig­na­ture track and field and foot­ball spon­sor­ships, NGC has demon­strat­ed a com­mit­ment to the de­vel­op­ment of crick­et over the years, through var­i­ous grass­roots ini­tia­tives as well as at the na­tion­al lev­el.

“The com­pa­ny recog­nis­es that spon­sor­ship of SS­CL would guar­an­tee an im­por­tant de­vel­op­men­tal ini­tia­tive for young crick­eters. The tour­na­ment of­fers the op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure at the high­est lev­el that is ac­com­pa­nied by learn­ing and de­vel­op­ment through high-lev­el com­pe­ti­tion.”

Speak­ing on be­half of the crick­eters, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege stu­dent Levi Ghan­ny, cap­tain of the trav­el­ling team, ex­pressed grat­i­tude to NGC for its demon­stra­tion of sup­port: “Your sup­port has not on­ly fund­ed our jour­ney but has al­so made our dreams a re­al­i­ty.”

He added: “This tour is a chance to show­case the tal­ent that has been de­vel­oped in our schools and com­mu­ni­ties, and demon­strate the val­ue of dis­ci­pline, team­work and re­silience. We un­der­stand the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with wear­ing our na­tion­al colours. We are de­ter­mined to rep­re­sent our coun­try with ho­n­our and dis­tinc­tion, and to make every sup­port­er, spon­sor and cit­i­zen proud of our achieve­ments.”

Com­ment­ing on the part­ner­ship, chair­man Ramdeen said: “Crick­et is that gold­en thread that binds to­geth­er all of the is­lands of the Caribbean re­gion. This is the sport more than any oth­er that man­i­fests our Caribbean iden­ti­ty. That iden­ti­ty has fad­ed over the past few years, but we will rise again if we in­vest in the de­vel­op­ment of young tal­ent, equip them with the tools they need and en­cour­age them to reach for the stars.

“To­day, NGC is proud and priv­i­leged to ral­ly around our young tal­ent. They have earned our sup­port by their sac­ri­fice, hard work and ded­i­ca­tion. In that con­text, this spon­sor­ship is not just a fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tion. It is an ex­pres­sion of our com­mit­ment to our young, tal­ent­ed sports­men and women. They car­ry our na­tion­al pride - and we are con­fi­dent that they will make us proud.”