A glance at the Cage Cricket game in motion in a warehouse bond, minus the cage.
A UK-based organisation that last year brought an Olympics-themed project to two local secondary schools, is back this year with a cricket inspired game taking hold abroad called cage cricket.
The game was introduced for the first time last Friday evening to a group of young cricketers from the Al-Falah Junior Academy Club, through an initiative with the Kensington Oval Management Inc.
Four boys between the ages of nine and 14, along with their coach Mohamad Iqbal Pandor and KOMI CEO Ben Toppin, got a taste of the game which is traditionally played in a rectangular cage, where points are awarded for hitting targets or outing batters, with six balls per over.
Founder and Director of the Ready Steady Go/Catch Project, Sheromie Brewster explained that after meeting with co-founder of Cage Cricket, Lawrence Prittipaul, who was interested in bringing the game to the Caribbean, she was hoping to get schools and even adults interested in the game.
“Cage cricket has a lot of interest around the UK and other countries and they are looking to do a world tour. They have great support… They want to help open up a centre stage for new talent from the West Indies in cricket once again,” she stated.
KOMI CEO Ben Toppin (left) and Catch Project’s Sheromie Brewster (second left) chat with the first players of Cage Cricket in Barbados.
As a result she said they hoped to set up a number of cricket challenges here, for which she is still making the contacts to deliver the game that anyone can get involved and play.
Toppin said that they had got involved because of KOMI’s dedication to improving the spectator experience and to bringing new innovations that could do just that.
“It is an innovation. Anything that is innovative can only add to the sport. We do the same thing over and over, get the same results and unlike what people think, we are not crazy. So we are not going to do the same thing over and over again. We will innovate. We will improvise if necessary.
“I want to see certain things like point of view cameras on the batsmen, on the umpires that sort of thing, feed it back to the scoreboards so that you get a different perspective, that sort of thing. So if you can bring a different version of cricket that appeals to families and youngsters and what’s not who would never make it out to the main pitch, we are all in,” he stated.
The boys, who play Under 13 and Under 15 said they too had a blast learning the game and trying to chalk up as many points for their team as they could. (LB)