Pres dedicate 2019 season to vice-principal

YANNICK QUINTAL

PRESENTATION COLLEGE San Fernando cricket team have come a long way from playing second fiddle in the school’s sporting interests to becoming a mainstay on the grounds of one of South Trinidad’s most prestigious schools.

Pres cricket team, during the 2019 season, won seven titles including the National Championship, for the first time in 26 years, and they have secured a spot in the Secondary Schools Cricket League Premiership Division.

We sat down with the Presentation College coach Rydell Ramsaran, team and TT Under-16 captain Tariq Mohammed, team manager Carlyle Jalim and the school’s vice-principal, Kenny Mootoosingh, to talk about the team’s 2019 performances and their plans for the 2020 Premiership season.

Here is Part Three of the interview...

NEWSDAY: Mr Ramsaran, did you see growth and maturity from the Under-14 level to the Championship level in terms of captaining the team?

RR: Yeah I was with him for two years and yes I did saw that. I saw a lot more maturity. I saw a lot more determination. More desire to do great things, I saw that during this time. So as I said, the motivation to want to play in Premiership cricket, I’m not sure that’s what brought it about or just the ageing process, but it all worked good for us.

NEWSDAY: Tariq, I think as recently as last month you were called up to be the captain of the national Under-17 side right? So how was that experience captaining not only maybe players from Pres but some of the top young talent in the country going over to play national cricket?

TM: It’s quite different. I think captaining a national team is a lot more challenging than Pres team. The maturity is way higher at national teams. So the captaincy style has to change a little because, secondary school cricket not as challenging as national cricket, but preferably I like to captain Pres. But it’s always a privilege to captain a mational team. It’s a bit more challenging as I said before, but trying to get players playing towards one goal and trying to get them more serious is a little more tough to do.

RR: But you mention the school and the support that we got from the school. This year we wanted to point out or vice-principal, because he too was one of our motivations.

NEWSDAY: Yes because that was actually going to be the next question I was going to get to. You guys dedicated this season of cricket to Mr Mootoosingh because of his (heart) surgery, so in terms of that, I mean how much more motivation do you want? So tell us about that.

TM: As he said, coach probably thought the motivation was playing Premiership cricket but wasn’t the motivation for me. It was about doing it for him because all these years of hard work since Form Two to now, we had to send him off properly because he’s retiring this year. So this last year that was my drive, everytime I went out to bat I, you know we had to do this for him. So much hard work because he was always there, and that was my motivation.

NEWSDAY: So this is news to me because Sir you never told me before that you were retiring this year.

KM: 31st of October.

CJ: Well I’m in the school now. The first year we worked together with Mr Imran. He managed the team the first year. Then after last year we start helping him, coming together and helping him work with the team, to bring the team together. It was a team that was building, so it’s not just a team that came by, it was a building team for four years. I think from playing cricket last year, everything was on Tariq. If he didn’t make (runs) in a game we didn’t do well so everything depended on what he did in the game, and maybe two other senior players. But the team that we actually had building in the last four years, this was the right year for them to come together, gel and play the game of cricket. He made (runs) in 60 per cent of the games and every game had guys coming in and playing to the fullest of their abilities. So that made the team this year, from the Under-14 to the Under-16 to the Championship team taking us to the Premiership this year.

NEWSDAY: Compared from four years ago to today, did you think, ‘Hmmmm this collection of talent that we have, could win seven championships in 2019’. Did you think that was going to happen?

CJ: I actually said that I was going to put everything into cricket for this year, and coach would know and Mr Mootoosingh would know that we wanted to put everything we had into cricket this year, because we can’t have a player like Tariq coming and play cricket and never play Premiership cricket. Right? We can’t have our vice-principal retiring, and this is something that we want the school to reach. So we decided, starting from the end of the season last year, to put everything that was learned and put it into training, and forming a good cricket programme in the school. That’s one of the things we did. It’s to put in a good training programme. We have one of the best player development coaches you could get, which is a start for getting with the players. By putting that together, having a good coach having the players, who motivated and want to play, who want to win, who want to achieve, because there’s a lot of (good) cricketers on the team too, who would’ve never played. So this was our year, and we had to do it. And it came across for everything for us.

NEWSDAY: Ok, so back to you (Mootoosingh). You’ve been teaching at this school, how many years?

KM: Nineteen years.

NEWSDAY: Nineteen years. Now I don’t know if cricket started 19 years ago or anytime between your tenure but to see cricket grow from this sense, reaching from where it was to seven championships in one year. As a teacher in this school and as a retiring vice-principal, to see the development of cricket, how has it been for you? How has the experience been for you?

KM: Right so, first I have not been involved with Presentation cricket for 19 years. I only started four years ago. David Akalloo was in charge previously, and I felt like he was so tied up with family commitments that I needed to get involved. And getting involved from the vice-principal’s office, I would have more say and to put things in place. Our coach then was Glen Dwarika, who did some basic work with the boys and brought them to a certain level. And then we had a manageable team, rather than being ad hoc, we had a proper coach, we had a manager, a treasurer and so on, so we had put that outfit together, and things started to move much more smoothly. I will not take all the credit for the seven championships. Jalim, Shamir Mohammed, Ali and Mohammed here again, they all worked together to give us what we have today. So winning seven championships was great and it was a really good parting gift for me. I’ve been asked to stay on to help with cricket and I will. So even though I will be retiring in October, I will help out.