De­spite in­ter­mit­tent rain, stu­dents from 16 schools shone on day one of the Pri­ma­ry Schools Crick­et Fes­ti­val yes­ter­day.

The young­sters were full of en­er­gy, en­thu­si­asm, and school pride dur­ing the first leg of the two-day event, host­ed by the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT), and pro­vid­ed some im­pres­sive bat­ting, bowl­ing and field­ing per­for­mances. The Fes­ti­val is the cul­mi­na­tion of the Pri­ma­ry Schools Crick­et Coach­ing Pro­gramme, which was de­liv­ered across all sev­en ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts by SporTT’s Com­mu­ni­ty Sports De­part­ment.

The pro­gramme in­tro­duced stu­dents to crick­et fun­da­men­tals while pro­mot­ing team­work, par­tic­i­pa­tion, and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

At the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs was rep­re­sent­ed by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Bev­er­ly Reid-Samuel, while the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion was rep­re­sent­ed by Ian Ram­lal, School Su­per­vi­sor II.

Dur­ing her re­marks, Reid-Samuel high­light­ed the im­por­tance of the Pri­ma­ry Schools Crick­et Coach­ing Pro­gramme.

“Sport, and in this par­tic­u­lar con­text, crick­et, helps pre­pare us for life far be­yond the bound­ary, teach­ing and re­in­forc­ing crit­i­cal so­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics such as dis­ci­pline, team­work, re­silience, and re­spect,” Reid-Samuel said. “Here, at the pri­ma­ry school lev­el, is where the jour­ney of na­tion­al sport de­vel­op­ment starts—with chil­dren like you, who are dis­cov­er­ing the joy of sport and who, with the right sup­port and de­sire, can grow to be­come our fu­ture sport­ing he­roes.

“The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs is proud to sup­port pro­grammes like this. We be­lieve that when we in­vest in you, we in­vest in a health­i­er, more ac­tive, and more unit­ed T&T”

SporTT CEO Ja­son Williams said the fes­ti­val is the re­ward for the stu­dents’ ef­forts in the pro­gramme dur­ing re­cent months.

“To­day is the cul­mi­na­tion of all the work you all would have been do­ing [in the last few months],” Williams said. “To ac­knowl­edge all of that, we brought you all here to­day at the icon­ic Bri­an Lara (Crick­et Acad­e­my) to en­joy your skills, to have a day of friend­ship, to learn from one an­oth­er, and most im­por­tant­ly to have fun.”

Each par­tic­i­pat­ing school field­ed a team of 15 stu­dents, and through­out the morn­ing's friend­ly ten-over match­es, Most Out­stand­ing Stu­dents were se­lect­ed from each school in the boys and girls cat­e­gories for their per­for­mance, ef­fort, and sports­man­ship.

The Fes­ti­val con­cludes to­day with an­oth­er 15 schools set to take the field.

Most Out­stand­ing Stu­dents

School*Boys*Girls

Diego Mar­tin Gov­ern­ment*Jour­don Yuk Low Rat­tan*An­na Marie Chris­t­ian

En­ter­prise Gov­ern­ment*Jah­mal Guade­loupe*Sofia Car­ring­ton

In­ver­ness Pres­by­ter­ian*Sha­nia Ramd­hanie*Shashi Moo­nan

La Lune RC*Zeke Williams*Reeza Black­well

Tu­na­puna Hin­du*Je­re­my Ramkissoon*Se­le­na Ram­saran

Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian No 1*Cris­tiano Roopan*Jmarie Ur­bano

Mal­oney Gov­ern­ment*Za­yne May­ers*Aneisha Weeks

Mon­key Town Gov­ern­ment*Samir Na­bie*Daniel­la Bun­see

Arou­ca Gov­ern­ment*Ra­heem Ma­haraj*Ake­sha Sar­gent

Macaulay Gov­ern­ment*Mes­si­ah Cuffy*Anaya Mo­hammed

Guaico Gov­ern­ment*Eli­jah De­vis*Kadelia Smith

Pe­nal Rock Road Hin­du*Bharat Sama­roo*Nan­di­ni Ram­jat­tan

Tu­na­puna Boys RC*Je­re­mi­ah Walk­er*Ronal­do Lewis

Ica­cos Gov­ern­ment*Tyrese Stephen*Daniel­la Ed­wards

Chatham Gov­ern­ment*Pranaav Sookdeo*An­drea Gopaul

Rivers­dale Pres­by­ter­ian*Kay­lon Guer­ra*Tamik­ka De­war