Dr Earl Ot­t­ley

Pres­i­dent, UWICC

Few or­gan­i­sa­tions gen­uine­ly unite the peo­ple of the Caribbean in pride to de­clare on the moun­tain­tops, “We are West In­di­an!” Al­though fail­ing to gen­er­ate a sim­i­lar ec­sta­sy in the past two to three decades, the West In­dies crick­et team ar­guably tow­ers above all such en­ti­ties his­tor­i­cal­ly. One doesn’t have to look fur­ther than a ran­dom Face­book reel, a Tik­Tok video, or YouTube shorts to re­mind us of the world-beat­ing dom­i­nant Caribbean men such as Sir Clive Lloyd, Sir Andy Roberts, Sir Gary Sobers, Sir Viv Richards, and the great Bri­an Charles Lara.

There is, how­ev­er, one oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion that em­bod­ies the com­ing to­geth­er of the peo­ple of the Caribbean— The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI)—and one leg­end of the world game that links both en­ti­ties—Sir Frank Mor­timer Maglinne Wor­rell—for­mer West In­dies crick­et team cap­tain and one of the famed 3 Ws of the 1950s West In­dies team.

In the mid-1960s, dur­ing his tenure as war­den of Mil­ner Hall at the UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, Sir Frank laid the first turf crick­et pitch­es in the south­east­ern cor­ner of the uni­ver­si­ty es­tate. The al­ready-in-use Ad­min­is­tra­tion West ground would now share its spoil of greats grac­ing the cam­pus. Fea­tur­ing three UWI teams at the time, the squad con­sist­ed main­ly of stu­dents and some staff mem­bers, such as Carl­ton Samuel (for­mer na­tion­al foot­ball team phys­io­ther­a­pist), vy­ing for the Trinci­ty & Wes Hall League ti­tles. Among oth­ers, David Hol­ford and Sir Frank added runs and wick­ets to their tal­ly that would un­for­tu­nate­ly not make it in­to the ES­PN records. The ground al­so host­ed the East Trinidad team in the Tex­a­co Cup first-class match­es of the 1970s. Af­ter Sir Frank’s un­time­ly pass­ing (March 1967), the venue was re­named the Sir Frank Wor­rell Memo­r­i­al Crick­et Ground (SFW­CG).

Af­ter a pe­ri­od of in­ac­tiv­i­ty, crick­et restart­ed at SFW­CG through the tire­less ef­forts of then-stu­dent coun­sel­lor An­tho­ny Jack­man and Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal, the late Pro­fes­sor George Maxwell Richards. In 1984, the SFW­CG was re­fur­bished through the work of Pro­fes­sor Bald­win Mootoo, Pro­fes­sor An­der­son Maxwell, Dr Sel­wyn Grif­fith, Dr Ri­d­ley Hold­er, and oth­ers. In Jan­u­ary 1985, the UWI Crick­et Club, St Au­gus­tine (UWICC), com­pet­ed in the Trinidad & To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) East Zone Di­vi­sion.

The club achieved its best re­sults un­der past pres­i­dent Pro­fes­sor Trevor Al­leyne (2002-2020), con­sis­tent­ly fin­ish­ing in the top three po­si­tions in all com­pe­ti­tions. Com­pris­ing main­ly stu­dents and alum­ni, the UWICC has won eight ti­tles and a sim­i­lar num­ber of sec­ond-place fin­ish­es. The UWICC was pro­mot­ed from the bot­tom tier East Zone Di­vi­sion I and played for two years in the Pre­mier­ship II di­vi­sion.

It should prob­a­bly go with­out say­ing that the crick­et club—like the uni­ver­si­ty it­self— is an en­ti­ty of in­clu­siv­i­ty and di­ver­si­ty fea­tur­ing stu­dents, staff, alum­ni, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, and lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al guest play­ers from all around the Caribbean—Ja­maica, Guyana, Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia, and St Kitts & Nevis to name a few. The club has con­tin­u­ous­ly pro­vid­ed a bal­anced co-cur­ric­u­lar ex­pe­ri­ence for stu­dents, al­low­ing them to en­gage in their crick­et­ing pur­suits at a high­er lev­el while main­tain­ing aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess.

Sev­er­al play­ers have rep­re­sent­ed the Com­bined Cam­pus­es & Col­leges (CCC) team and played in Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) re­gion­al tour­na­ments. Im­ti­az Easa­hak rep­re­sent­ed the Vice Chan­cel­lor’s XI against New Zealand in 2002 and the Com­bined Uni­ver­si­ties Team in the Red Stripe re­gion­al tour­na­ment in the same year. To­day, he holds a top ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tion in a promi­nent multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny.

The UWICC reach­es be­yond UWI’s phys­i­cal bound­aries, of­fer­ing ado­les­cent boys from the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty pos­i­tive guid­ance from uni­ver­si­ty per­son­nel. West In­dies Un­der-19 all-rounder Sion Hack­ett, who lives a stone’s throw from the ground, dis­cov­ered his love for the game in his pri­ma­ry school days play­ing along­side his old­er cousins for the UWICC. The club’s va­ca­tion crick­et camp pro­gramme pro­vides train­ing and life skills de­vel­op­ment. The UWI T20 Tour­na­ment has es­tab­lished it­self as a pre­mier crick­et com­pe­ti­tion on the an­nu­al na­tion­al cal­en­dar, at­tract­ing ma­jor spon­sors such as Uni­com Trinidad Lim­it­ed and re­gion­al par­tic­i­pat­ing teams.

Hav­ing al­ready won the 2023 East Zone Chair­man’s T12 Tour­na­ment, the club fin­ished sec­ond in the two-day com­pe­ti­tion un­der the cap­tain­cy of Jameel Lash­ley, coach Stu­art Gopaul, and pres­i­dent Dr Earl Ot­t­ley. In 2024, the UWICC will con­tin­ue to strive for pro­mo­tion to the TTCB Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion. The UWICC con­tin­ues to be Root­ed, Ready, and Ris­ing in the 75th an­niver­sary year of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Dr Earl Ot­t­ley is pres­i­dent of the UWI Crick­et Club.