Addressing day one of the CARICOM Regional Cricket Conference at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain under the banner Reinvigorating West Indies Cricket, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley made a clarion call for women’s cricket to be elevated in all regards.
Harkening back to her youth, Prime Minister Mottley reminisced on her early association with the game, which was nurtured by her own experiences and interactions with West Indies and Barbados legend, Charlie Griffith.
“Sometimes I would come outside in our house and he would be playing with other people and to me that was an amazing opportunity at six or seven years old to see a giant of a man with whom you would touch and play and relate,” she said.
“As a young kid outside of Kensington, standing by the players’ pavilion waiting for Sir Andy Roberts and Joel Garner and Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge. They probably wouldn’t even have known because I was just any other little girl asking for an autograph.”
These experiences she said epitomize what West Indies cricket means to each and every boy and girl in the region. Mottley said it shaped her identity to be able to consider herself a trustee of the legacy of a country which has defined itself most clearly through the game of cricket.
“My heart filled with pride this week when Hayley Matthews was heralded by Wisden as T20 cricketer of the year.”
“And it did so because when we first met Mr President (Kishore Shallow) it was actually International Women’s Day March 8. And I asked you then to start the journey of removing some of the discriminatory practices between men and women. Practices that go as far as the quality of the coverage and the camera quality. Meaning that it becomes less alluring to those who may not be fully engaged purely because when you look at the IPL and you look at the women playing cricket it just doesn’t look the same.”
“That cannot be a metaphor for our own development.”
Among her proposals to help elevate women’s cricket was a mixed-gender game and an ecosystem cultivated and developed to include opportunities for participation in cricket which is the team sport that has brought the region the most recognition internationally.
“We have an obligation to be able to level the field by the investments that we have to make in this sport, recognising that not all may make the team but all can participate at different levels to make a living.”
She added, “Whether it is in exporting persons to help in coaching across the world, whether it is through the ability to have as many of our youngsters play, whether it is in the creation of world-class umpires, whether it is people who are in the business of keeping the field and the pitches in good form. Whatever it is, we must plan now the careful investment that will allow us to see this as a viable, productive, and economic sector while at the same time having the luxury of being the love of our life.”