The ultimate prize has been laid on the table: the opportunity to meet and play against the Guyana Amazon Warriors (GAW) team. This revelation was greeted with eager smiles and expectant “Oohs!” and “Aahs!” at the National Library in Georgetown on Thursday morning.
The tournament is the ‘Future Warriors’ Tape ball Cricket Tournament for primary schools. It will be powered by oil giant ExxonMobil, sponsors of the GAW. Action is set to bowl off this Saturday, September 9th, at the Everest Cricket Club Ground, with the tournament receiving a $4M boost from the renowned oil and gas company.
ExxonMobil Community Relations Advisor Ryan Hoppie, during the said launch on Thursday morning, highlighted the cultural significance of the tournament, while discussing the reason for the investment.
Students who would compete in the Future Warriors tournament are flanked by ExxonMobl’s Ryan Hopie, FL Sport’s John Ramsingh, and Romario Samaroo, GCA’s Shawn Massiah and an Education Ministry- Allied Arts representative.
“For us at ExxonMobil, when we think about investing, we think about investing in one of our focus areas, which is youth development through sport, and we also look at community investment. And so, for us, when we invest in community and we invest in youths, we see it as huge, positive investments with huge, positive results and impacts,” Hoppie shared.
He added, “And so, this project holds particularly important cultural significance for us here in Guyana. You know we love cricket, and you know we love enjoying a good cricket match, whether we talking about 50 overs, T10, T20, or in this case we have 8-over tournament. When we say we invest in youth at ExxonMobil, investing in youth is investing in the future.”
ExxonMobil Community Relations Advisor, Ryan Hoppie
The 8-over a side tournament will see 12 primary schools from Georgetown competing in the straight knockout format on Saturday at the Everest Ground on Carifesta Avenue. The budding cricketers will be tasked with bowling over-hand and competing on the standard 17M junior pitch.
Organising Committee Member Romario Samaroo divulged that the tournament is a bid to breathe life into the ‘cricket in schools’ drive.
Samaroo revealed, “And we want to get children back into organized cricket. As John would’ve mentioned, there’s not a lot of schools’ tournaments going around as it relates to cricket. We have football, basketball and so on; but when it comes to cricket, there’s not that much going on in schools, and we want to bring that back.
“So, we decided to use tape ball, cause it’s not going to be costly for schools to participate. We’re providing bats, balls and everything you need. All you need to do is come out,” this member of the Organising team further stated.
Following the knockouts on Saturday, the top three teams will move on to play a round- robin format at the GDF Ground on Sunday to decide the top two for the grand finale.
The participating schools are Stella Maris, St. Ambrose, St. Margaret’s, Winfer Gardens, St. Pius, St. Angela’s, St. Gabriel’s, F.E. Pollard, West Field Prep, Graham’s Hall, West Ruimveldt, and St. Sidwell’s Primary.
In addition to the ultimate incentive, there are trophies and other accolades up for grabs for the budding cricketers this weekend. (Jemima Holmes)
