Secretary/CEO of the Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club (RHTY&SC), Hilbert Foster, is of the firm belief that much more can be done for the growth and development of female cricket in Guyana.
Shemaine CampbelleTremayne SmarttStafanie Taylor
Speaking to this publication during an exclusive interview on Saturday, Foster, whose club in East Berbice has the most active female cricket set-up in the country, bemoaned the fact that the ladies are being left to play second fiddle to their male counterparts, noting that little or no interest is being paid to the females.
“Female cricket in Guyana is being treated like a step child with no emphasis being placed on it at all,” he declared.
“It’s only the Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club, which has about 18 girls as members right now, has a female team, and even we at the club are becoming frustrated because the girls are being forced to play Under-15, Under-17 and Under-19 against all-male teams. In a sense, it is assisting them to improve a lot playing against males, but at the same time it is quite frustrating because the girls want to play against their fellow females.”
Foster related that the West Indies Women’s title win at the World T20 should inspire more females to get into the sport in Guyana, but noted that the active cricket clubs around the country have got to show a keen interest in investing in female cricket.
Both Guyanese on the World Cup-winning West Indies Women’s team- all-rounder Shemaine Campbelle and fast bowler Tremayne Smartt- are products of the RHTY&SC. While Campbelle is currently the captain of the club’s Metro Female Team, Smartt is now attached to the Bermine male team.
“It is simply unbelievable that clubs like GCC [Georgetown Cricket Club], DCC [Demerara Cricket Club], Everest, Albion and the other top clubs in Guyana are placing no emphasis on females. There are a lot of girls out there who live far away from Rose Hall who want to play cricket, but to the huge cost in transportation and things like that they’re finding it difficult to travel down,” Foster explained.
He continued, “I really think the Guyana Cricket Board and the different county boards should be more proactive, because emphasis is only placed on the girls about two or three weeks before Inter-county, and the females in Demerara, I’ve spoken to some of them, they’re very upset that nobody seems to be placing them on the agenda…I don’t know how we will improve female cricket in Guyana if the girls are not playing 365 days a year.”
The Guyana Cricket Board is the governing body for the sport in Guyana, and female cricket falls under its purview. Foster has proposed a few ideas that the Board could implement to move cricket on the distaff side forward.
“They will have to identify a pool of girls for special training on a year-round basis, just like what they’re doing with the boys. They will have to invest in female school cricket so that we could have some new talents coming forth because it’s been one set of players dominating the female level year after year [in Guyana], unlike other countries where players like [Hayley] Matthews and [Afy] Fletcher and other exciting youths are coming up…we’re not having that in Guyana,” Foster explained.
He added, “I also think that the Guyana Cricket Board should give incentives to clubs to form female teams, whether it’s financially or with gear, but if we could have two or three clubs in every county to form a female team I think we will be on our way [to improving female cricket].”
Recruitment drive
Foster’s comments came less than a week after West Indies Women’s skipper Stafanie Taylor suggested that “a recruitment programme is needed as part of an elaborate plan to keep the sport alive in the region.”
Taylor was speaking days after the West Indies female side toppled Australia in the World T20 final in India, winning comfortably by eight wickets.
Taylor, who was voted player-of-the-tournament, is worried that women’s cricket in the region could suffer a significant decline if a proper system is not put in place for when the current crop of players retire.
The Jamaican all-rounder said a recruitment drive needs to target schools across the Caribbean, in particular. “We need to go into the schools and try to get girls to come out,” Taylor told the Jamaica Observer.
Infrastructure is another area Taylor believes could be improved in the Caribbean. “I think we definitely need some infrastructure where as Australia and England they do have it. We need young girls coming up. When you look at our team, most of us are fairly young and when these core players are gone. It’s going to deteriorate and we need to start building young players coming up.”
Taylor also spoke of her ambitions to see female Test cricket at some point.
“That’s one of my dreams, to play Test cricket. The type of player I am I think it will definitely suit and build my game as time goes on, but I will definitely love to play Test cricket. I think it will definitely help some of the girls. Longer format of the game where they could build their game and I think it will definitely help us in playing in one day games,” she explained. ([email protected])
