VIN­ODE MAM­CHAN

vin­ode.mam­chan@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) with as­sis­tance from telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider Bmo­bile, launched the TTCB Crick­et Acad­e­my pro­gramme yes­ter­day at a press con­fer­ence at their head­quar­ters in Bal­main, Cou­va.

Pres­i­dent of the TTCB, Az­im Bas­sarath un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the Acad­e­my and heaped prais­es on Bmo­bile for its spon­sor­ship. Ac­cord­ing to the long-serv­ing Bas­sarath: “This unique pro­gramme we are gath­ered here to launch is an ac­com­plished fin­ish­ing school for our most out­stand­ing crick­eters be­tween the ages of 17 and 22, who have been iden­ti­fied by the Crick­et Board as fu­ture na­tion­al, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stars. And we are es­pe­cial­ly pleased to have Bmo­bile, our pre­mier telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider once again com­ing for­ward to ex­er­cise their cor­po­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the in­ter­est of the de­vel­op­ment of crick­et and our promis­ing young men.

“Bmo­bile has pre­vi­ous­ly pi­o­neered, in con­junc­tion with the Crick­et Board, a men­tor­ship pro­gramme for age group crick­eters in­volv­ing world bat­ting record-hold­er Bri­an Lara, which apart from be­ing ground­break­ing, in­spi­ra­tional and very suc­cess­ful. The com­pa­ny has stepped up its game and we are very proud to have the pres­ti­gious Bmo­bile brand as­so­ci­at­ed with this well-ex­e­cut­ed and vi­sion­ary pro­gramme. It is no un­der­state­ment to say the Bmo­bile TTCB Crick­et Acad­e­my seeks to em­bell­ish the great la­tent crick­et tal­ent which is present in every nook and cran­ny of the twin-is­land na­tion.”

The pro­gramme was first in­tro­duced in 2002 and ac­cord­ing to Bas­sarath: “This men­tor­ship ini­tia­tive was de­scribed as rev­o­lu­tion­ary and was in­deed unique in its struc­tured for­mat which served to el­e­vate our best play­ers for the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. At its in­cep­tion, among those who ben­e­fit­ted were Kieron Pol­lard, Kevon Coop­er, Gre­go­ry Ma­habir, Sher­win Gan­ga, and Amit Jag­ger­nauth who are all ac­com­plished crick­eters in their own right. Since 2009 when the in­sight­ful and in­no­v­a­tive pro­gramme was re­struc­tured in my first term as pres­i­dent of the Crick­et Board, we have seen the emer­gence of sev­er­al out­stand­ing crick­eters among whom are Khary Pierre, Derone Davis, Akeal Ho­sein, Philton Williams, Ewart Nichol­son and the tal­ent­ed Ot­t­ley broth­ers, name­ly Kjorn and Yan­nick.

In the Bmo­bile TTCB Crick­et Acad­e­my, the young­sters will spend 90 per cent of their time in a live-in camp over sev­er­al week­ends at the Sir Frank Wor­rell De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre, do­ing tech­ni­cal work as­so­ci­at­ed with their spe­cial­i­ties. They will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pol­ish their phys­i­cal and men­tal tal­ents in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the chal­lenges ahead as they are all poised on the doorstep of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion.

Apart from the nit­ty-grit­ty of hon­ing their skills in prac­ti­cal as­pects of the game on the field and in the class­room at the high­ly re­gard­ed Sir Frank Wor­rell De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre, the acad­e­my in­ductees will al­so be schooled in oth­er equal­ly im­por­tant sub­jects com­ple­men­tary to their as­cen­sion.

These in­clude in­tro­duc­ing the boys on han­dling the me­dia at­ten­tion which is cer­tain to come their way; mo­ti­va­tion­al lec­tures to struc­ture their men­tal pre­pared­ness; in­sights on mon­ey man­age­ment when they reap the rich re­wards of their hard work and sac­ri­fice; de­vel­op­ing self-aware­ness; and craft­ing in­ter-per­son­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Al­so in­clud­ed in the com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram are lec­tures on nu­tri­tion, crick­et his­to­ry and oth­er as­pects that are cer­tain to con­tribute to their suc­cess­ful de­vel­op­ment as all-around holis­tic ath­letes.

Rhon­da Lee Yapp se­nior man­ag­er of mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at TSTT said: “Per­sis­tence can change fail­ure in­to ex­tra­or­di­nary achieve­ment. I be­lieve re­mark­able achieve­ments can be ac­com­plished if one lives by this mind­set. I al­so be­lieve, the fact that we are all gath­ered here is con­fir­ma­tion that young sports­men se­lect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the bmo­bile crick­et acad­e­my for 2018 are on the right path to liv­ing this mantra.

“Our part­ner­ship with the TTCB be­gan in 2016 when we host­ed the very first Fu­ture Stars Crick­et Pro­gramme dur­ing which a list of ex­pe­ri­enced lo­cal coach­es in­clud­ing bmo­bile brand am­bas­sador Bri­an Lara trained, ed­u­cat­ed and men­tored the par­tic­i­pants as they pre­pared for their re­spec­tive West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) Re­gion­al tour­na­ments. The bmo­bile fu­ture stars crick­et pro­gramme was held just be­fore the com­pe­ti­tion and each team re­turned home with a re­gion­al ti­tle.”

Lara did a live video link from In­dia and urged the 18 young men to take ad­van­tage of all that has been giv­en to them and to work hard to achieve their goals. He said he would join them as soon as he re­turns from In­dia.