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Tony BeccaThe rural schoolboy cricket season bowls off on Tuesday at Windalco's Kirkvine Sports Club and cricket fans around the country, particularly those who have been lamenting the present state of West Indies cricket, should be happy and should be saying thanks once again to GraceKennedy.
After being treated like orphaned children for so long, the rural competitions the Headley Cup, the Dickie Fuller Cup for under 16 players and the one for under 14 players, like its urban counterparts the former Sunlight Cup, the under 16 and the Jackie Hendriks Cup for under 14 players, will now be generously sponsored and that is good news for the game.
For the past six years, GraceKennedy, through its Financial Services Division, has been sponsoring the urban competitions, and as of today, they also will be sponsoring the rural competitions at a total cost of 8.5 million dollars.
social glue for Jamaicans
According to Don Wehby, chief financial officer at Grace Kennedy, "cricket plays a significant role in the future of the young men who play the game, it serves as a social glue for Jamaicans," and that is reason enough for GraceKennedy, one of the giants in the business sector, to get involved, more involved, in the game at that level.
To those who love the game, however, there is one other reason why GraceKennedy's additional sponsorship should be lauded.
To a number of those who lament the present poor performance of the West Indies team, nothing will change until the schools and the clubs start to produce better and more dedicated players, and that will not happen until more emphasis is placed on cricket in the schools and in the clubs.
great for the future
More emphasis, however, means more money, GraceKen-nedy has come up with that money, or rather with some of it, and although, according to Wehby, the spreading of the game, the development of talent and the grooming of that talent is not his company's reason for injecting so much into school cricket, the fact is that it will help, or should help Jamaica and West Indies cricket in the future.
For a number of years, Jamaica's school cricket was dominated by urban school and Jamaica's cricketers and those who went on to represent the West Indies came out of urban schools.
Today, however, that is not so. Today, Jamaica's school cricket is dominated by rural schools, more and more those who represent the Jamaica Youth team, Jamaica and the West Indies are coming out of rural schools, and now that they will be on par with urban schools as far as funding is concerned, the sky is the limit.
In Xavier Marshall, Brenton Parchment and Shaun Findlay, Nikita Miller and Jerome Taylor, the team which is now representing Jamaica against Barbados, for example, boasts six players from rural schools and they were produced at a time when rural schools and their competitions were treated like distant relatives.
hardly any help
It will take some time, but with 75 schools in the Grace Headley Cup and 37 in the Grace Shield, with the rural schools doing so well when, but for one like Wilco Sports, there was hardly any help, Jamaica and the West Indies, thanks to GraceKennedy, can look forward with confidence.
In saying thanks to Grace, however, we should also remember the many other companies that have contributed, not only to cricket but also to the growth and development of sport in this country private sector companies like Red Stripe, Wray and Nephew, Cigarette Company of Jamaica, Capital & Credit Merchant Bank, Supreme Ventures, Scotia Bank, Kingston Wharves, Carib Cement, Nestle Jamaica, Pepsi and KFC that have so often answered the call.
