It looks as though the Gibson/Wallace Under-18 Twenty20 Cricket Festival will be back due to popular demand.
That’s the word from organizer Mark Gaskin following a successful event held at the Desmond Haynes Oval, Black Rock on Sunday.
Wanderers Juniors won the inaugural event, defeating Carlton Juniors in the final by six wickets to end a rugged day of activity for the two teams.
In the opening match of the day, Carlton beat Gee Spot Regional Tigers.
Wanderers then played back-to-back matches, overcoming Foundation before taking on Carlton in the final.
“We are going to take this competition further, expanding it and making it stronger for next year,” Gaskin told MIDWEEK SPORT shortly after watching Jameel Stuart blast an unbeaten 68 to lead Wanderers to victory and capture the Man of the Match award.
“Everyone is calling for it and if that is what the public wants I have no problem. It will be an annual event. We just have to make it bigger next year,” Gaskin said.
“We are hoping to involve a few more teams whether locally or regionally and also what I would like is some community based teams because I don’t think we get the chance to see many cricketers in the community,” Gaskin added.
Gaskin lauded the contributions of sponsors Pirates Inn Hotel, PJ Building Supplies and TeleBarbados, adding that the level of expansion of the tournament would depend in part on sponsorship.
Gaskin said that he was able to achieve close to 90 per cent of his objectives as the tournament was always designed to be more than just cricket. He was happy that the players bought into the concept.
“Cricket is not just bat and ball but how you treat the game off the field, how you prepare mentally, at practice sessions how uniform the team should be,” Gaskin suggested.
He was heartened by the manner in which his own team, Gee Spot Regional Tigers, responded.
“When I put these guys together they didn’t know what they were getting into. When they saw what the set up was, the way they handled it, I was very impressed,” said Gaskin, who explained that the preparation involved night practice in the indoor nets at the University of the West Indies and early morning training sessions.
The Regional Tigers included three Trinidadians and Gaskin revealed there was also an attempt to include Guyanese players but these plans fell through because of time conflicts with students attending school.
Gaskin, who has organized several tournaments before, acknowledged that he had learned a lot about cricket administration from watching people such as Adrian Donovan and Stephen Leslie. He thought it appropriate to name the competition after current West Indies coach Ottis Gibson and former Barbados captain and Test opener Philo Wallace.
“Those guys were good contributors to youth cricket in Barbados. They made youth cricket in Barbados very strong. They went on to play Test cricket,” he said.
