JCA operations boss beams at successful youth tournament

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Despite the dominance shown by the local teams, the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) says the staging of the recent Jamerican Youth Cricket Tournament was a notable success on the developmental front.

The tournament, which featured mostly Under-16 cricketers and a few 17-year-olds, comprised three teams from Jamaica — Black, Green and Gold — and as many from the United States.

The US-based teams were American Youth Cricket Academy (AYCA) Falcons, Master Strokes Cricket America (MSCA) Blazers, and North Jersey Youth Cricket Academy (NJYCA) Qasars.

Matches were hosted at Port Rhoades Sports Club and Reynolds (Jamaica Bauxite Mining) Cricket Ground in St Ann and the Trelawny Multipurpose Stadium.

In the championship match on December 28, Jamaica Gold, who batted first to make 163, defeated Jamaica Black by 21 runs in a low-scoring but gripping encounter.

“I would say that the objectives were met… it wasn’t so much about winning; it was to give our Jamaican youngsters the chance to compete against opposition other than what they are used to playing against,” O’neil Cruickshank, the JCA’s cricket operations and development manager, told the Jamaica Observer on Thursday.

“The US academies would have wanted to have competed better against the Jamaican teams, however, they were able to gauge where they are with respect to their development programmes.”

Heavily boosted by cricket-loving Asian emigrants, the sport is rapidly growing in North America.

Cruickshank said the US-based academies benefited from being able to compete on turf pitches as opposed to the artificial ones they are exposed to back home.

“We knew going into the tournament that the US academy teams were not used to playing on these surfaces, so they would have had to get acclimatised. But you could see as the tournament went on that they were adapting better to the conditions and the batting surface,” he explained.

“They wanted practice on turf pitches as opposed to the artificial pitches that they play on. The various parties are committed to continue and next year we want to even expand on tournaments of this nature,” Cruickshank added.

He noted that while the scores were low in some matches, the wet weather experienced during the tournament played its part.

“For the Jamaican teams, the bowlers did very well, but the batters didn’t do as well as we would’ve wanted them to. The rain impacted some games, but the ground staff did well. So, in terms of performance we had to factor the weather in it.

“In the championship match I was particularly pleased with the attitude from the two teams during the ebb and flow of the game. Both teams fought throughout that game, neither side gave up, so that was the most pleasing game I saw. It was low scoring but a game worthy of a championship decider,” Cruickshank beamed.

Jamaica Gold’s Odane Binns won the prize for the tournament’s top scorer with 176 runs, while in the bowling department, AYCA’s Shriyans Kolipaka took 10 wickets to claim that award. Jamaica Black’s Demario Hall also claimed 10 wickets, but Kolipaka got the nod because he had a superior economy rate.

— Sanjay Myers

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JCA operations boss beams at successful youth tournament

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