At­ten­tion will turn to To­ba­go to­mor­row af­ter the Trinidad leg of the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) Pri­ma­ry Schools Crick­et Fes­ti­val con­clud­ed Tues­day at Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do.

Some 465 stu­dents from 31 pri­ma­ry schools par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pro­gramme from June 23-24 at the Tarou­ba sta­di­um, and an­oth­er nine schools in To­ba­go are ex­pect­ed to en­joy their time in the mid­dle at Shaw Park Recre­ation Ground come Fri­day.

The sec­ond and fi­nal day at BLCA pro­duced an­oth­er ex­cit­ing dis­play of team­work, tal­ent, and en­thu­si­asm from 15 pri­ma­ry schools across Trinidad.

Or­gan­ised by the SporTT through its Com­mu­ni­ty Sports De­part­ment, the Fes­ti­val cel­e­brates the con­clu­sion of the Pri­ma­ry Schools Crick­et Coach­ing Pro­gramme, which was de­liv­ered across all sev­en ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts. The pro­gramme fo­cus­es on de­vel­op­ing fun­da­men­tal crick­et skills and fos­ter­ing in­clu­sion and dis­ci­pline, as well as a love for the game.

Dur­ing Tues­day’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs was rep­re­sent­ed by Patrice Charles, Di­rec­tor (Ag) of the Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport Di­vi­sion, who com­mend­ed the young ath­letes and high­light­ed the pro­gramme’s role in youth en­gage­ment and sport de­vel­op­ment.

The Most Out­stand­ing Stu­dents in the boys and girls cat­e­gories were se­lect­ed from each school for their no­table per­for­mances, at­ti­tudes and team­work through­out the day. Fol­low­ing the end of two-day event SporTT chief ex­e­cu­ti8ve of­fi­cer (CEO) Ja­son Williams ex­pressed his op­ti­mism about the im­pact of the pro­gramme and Crick­et Fes­ti­val.

Williams said: “We’ve had rough­ly 465 stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing over the past two days, and more than 1,000 stu­dents in to­tal would have ben­e­fit­ed from the SporTT Pri­ma­ry Schools Crick­et Coach­ing Pro­gramme over the last few months. This is a good sign for de­vel­op­ment of the sport, and we look for­ward to To­ba­go hav­ing their day out on Fri­day as well.”

The To­ba­go leg com­pletes the na­tion­wide ef­fort to in­tro­duce chil­dren to crick­et in a fun, in­clu­sive en­vi­ron­ment—lay­ing a foun­da­tion for fu­ture de­vel­op­ment and fos­ter­ing na­tion­al pride through sport.

Day 2 (Trinidad) – Most Out­stand­ing Stu­dents

School*Boys*Girls

Pe­nal Rock Road Pres­by­ter­ian*Azriel Nanan*Es­trelle Ro­jan

St. Pius RC*Jah­don Richard­son*Ste­fon Hari­dass

Rousil­lac Hin­du*Ashish Mo­hammed*So­ri­ah Na­gar

Char­lieville Pres­by­ter­ian*Ran­dall Ma­haraj*An­geli­ah Ram­cripaul

Lengua TIA Pri­ma­ry*Jonathan Mahipat*Sophia Har­ry

Cu­napo RC*Kris­tiano Lacario*Yak­era Hunte

Di­a­mond Vale Gov­ern­ment*Steven John*Ki­maya De Mills

Vance Riv­er RC*Bran­don Rouse*Ayan­na Frencette

Ex­change Pres­by­ter­ian*Gabriel Has­matali*Di­yara Boo­choon

South Cen­tral An­gli­can*Re­nal­do O’Con­nor*Ri­ana Vasquez Balka­ran

Debe Gov­ern­ment*Adam Jer­ry*Chioma Charles

Eck­el Vil­lage An­gli­can*Bri­an Ram­dass*Adam Jag­mo­han

Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian No 2*Is­re­al Bain*Hai­ley Har­ry

Grand Chemin RC*Ame­lio Ram­nar­ine*Makay­la Popo

Union Pres­by­ter­ian*Bradley Balkissoon*Jaky­la Clarke