Vin­ode Mam­chan

All­rounder Aneil Kan­hai copped the Crick­eter of the Year award at the an­nu­al prize giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Ce­ram­ic Trinidad Mer­ry­boys Crick­et Club last Sun­day evening at the Diego Mar­tin Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Wendy Fitzwilliam Boule­vard. Kan­hai had an out­stand­ing sea­son scor­ing 270 runs at an av­er­age of 38.57 and tak­ing 57 wick­ets with his off-spin­ners. He beat out youth crick­eter of the year Miguel Ma­habir, Da­le­on Williams, Bar­ba­di­an Al­cin­do Hold­er and all rounder Ken­ton Thomp­son for the top prize.

His ef­forts for Mer­ry­boys dur­ing the sea­son has led to him be­ing re­called to the na­tion­al team and is cur­rent­ly in tri­als to se­lect the na­tion­al team.

The youth crick­eter of the year, Ma­habir has been a con­sis­tent per­former over the past few sea­sons and he scored 175 runs at an av­er­age of 31.00 and took 26 wick­ets at an av­er­age off 8.48.

Se­nior Coun­sel, Theodore Guer­ra was hon­ored by the club for his work in the Diego Mar­tin area in terms of youth de­vel­op­ment and al­so de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress.

He called on Min­is­ter of Sport Anil Roberts to fin­ish the North­ern Sa­van­nah fa­cil­i­ty in or­der to give Mer­ry­boys a home.He said: "I am mak­ing a call to the Min­is­ter of Sport to fin­ish the con­struc­tion of North­ern Sa­van­nah so that the team can have a home and the young peo­ple in the area can have a mean­ing­ful pas­time.

"I would al­so like to see the women folk com­ing out and be­ing part of the Mer­ry­boys set up and play­ing crick­et and foot­ball as well."

Caryl Kel­lar, of the Min­istry of Sport, said the work of club pres­i­dent Patrick Ram­per­sad should not go un­no­ticed as he had done a very good job in as­sist­ing the youths of Diego Mar­tin.

"I must say that hats off to Patrick Ram­per­sad. He has done a lot to help the youths in this area and it is be­cause of peo­ple like Patrick Ram­per­sad our mur­der rate is not sim­i­lar to that of Ja­maica," said Kel­lar.Ram­per­sad, in his ad­dress, called for an ex­pla­na­tion as to why Mer­ry­boys play­er Lendl Sim­mons was not on the West In­dies team. He said it was baf­fling and some­one had to come out and say some­thing.

In a no-non­sense ad­dress he al­so called on cor­po­rate clubs to stop de­stroy­ing oth­er clubs by tak­ing their play­ers. He al­so said the move a cou­ple of years ago to bring in UTT and put them in the sec­ond di­vi­sion was a very bad one, as it sent the wrong mes­sage.

"Any team that want­ed to en­ter the board's com­pe­ti­tion, they had to start at the bot­tom but this did not hap­pen with UTT and it was wrong."

MER­RY­BOYS HO­N­OUR ROLL

Re­serve League

Most Runs - Clidell Gorin

Most wick­ets - Da­le­on Williams

Bat­ting av­er­age - Miguel Ma­habir

Bowl­ing av­er­age - Da­le­on Williams

Pre­mier league

Most runs - Al­cin­do Hold­er

Most wick­ets - Aneil Kan­hai

Bat­ting av­er­age - Aneil Kan­hai

Bowl­ing av­er­age - Aneil Kan­hai

5 Wick­et Haul - Re­serve: Morad Khan 6/36 vs Preysal; Joel Sinanan 5/28 vs Preysal; Da­le­on Williams 5/40 vs Comets; Da­le­on Williams 6/48 vs Pow­er­Gen; Da­le­on Williams 5/11 vs Clarke Road; Miguel Ma­habir 5/70 vs Pow­er­Gen; Miguel Ma­habir 5/13 vs Wan­der­ers; Miguel Ma­habir 5/29 vs UTT; Nicholas Ram­per­sad 5/42 vs QPCC; Nicholas Ram­per­sad 5/37 vs QPCC

5 Wick­et Haul- Pre­mier­ship: Ker­von Christ­mas 5/47 vs Wan­der­ers; Aneil Kan­hai 5/59 vs Comets; Aneil Kan­hai 6/12 vs Wan­der­ers; Aneil Kan­hai 5/55 vs Wan­der­ers; Aneil Kan­hai 6/61 vs UTT; Aneil Kan­hai 5/73 vs QPCC; Aniel Kan­hai 5/74 vs Preysal

Cen­turies: Samuel Fe­lix 191 vs Wan­der­ers; Al­cin­do Hold­er 102 vs Ever­green; Al­cin­do Hold­er 111 vs Preysal

Al­cin­do Hold­er 103 vs Wan­der­ers;

Spe­cial awards

Theodore Ros­sevelt Guer­ra, Nair Habib

Sup­port­ers prize - Kevin Ma­hadeo

Pres­i­dent's award - Glen Roach

Ho­n­ouree 2010 - George Coon­ai

Most dis­ci­plined play­er - Aval­on Gar­raway

Most im­proved play­er - Da­le­on Williams

Youth crick­eter of the year - Miguel Ma­habir

Five crick­eters of the year: Da­le­on Williams, Miguel Ma­habir, Ken­ton Thomp­son, Aneil Kan­hai and Al­cin­do Hold­er.

Crick­eter of the Year - Aneil Kan­hai.