School cricketers eager for 2019 season

SECONDARY School cricketers were beaming with confidence yesterday at the launch of the 2019 PowerGen Secondary Schools Cricket League (SSCL) held at the VIP Lounge of the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, yesterday.

Male and female cricketers from the premiership division, north championship division and south championship divisions were in attendance.

The opening day of the 50-over competition bowls off on Tuesday with a massive clash between defending premiership champions Hillview College and powerhouse Naparima College at the Queen's Park Oval, from 10 am.

A number of students spoke about their team's goals for the season including Antonio Gomez of St Benedict's College, Navin Bidaisee of Hillview, Tariq Mohammed of Presentation College, San Fernando and Priya Alladin of Barrackpore East Secondary.

Bidaisee, whose team swept the boys competition, said, "We had a pretty good season (last year). We came out with the double (T20/50-over) and we hope to accomplish that this year once again. We have a good team and we still have a lot of experience, although we lost seven key players, but we intend to keep going hard, keep sticking to our strengths and hopefully all will pay off. We have a good coach, a good management staff and we hope to make them proud once again."

Alladin of Barrackpore East, the team that won the PowerGen Girls T20 Intercol title last year, said, "The Barrackpore East Secondary girls team has been working hard in preparing for the 2019 season...Barrackpore East Secondary girls team has a very good chance this year."

President of the SSCL Surujdath Mahabir encouraged the students to have fun. "The reason why we are here is not only to play cricket but for you to enjoy your school days. They say school days are the best days. It should not be that you regret going to a school or you have problems that you can't enjoy school – have fun. If you go out to play and you don't have fun, you have not played."

Powergen's senior corporate communications specialist Francois Ottley said, "Our 23-year partnership with the SSCL has been grounded by our corporate philosophy – we care for our country and we seek to develop youth through sport and education."

Also speaking at the launch were Ministry of Education representative Dudnath Nagessar and physical education sports officer at Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs Pradeep Vishnu.