Some of Barbados’ best cricketing young talent were given a ten point plan as to how to blend sports and academic to become a successful individual as well as a member of the West Indies team.
Those ten commandments of success were presented by West Indian fast bowling legend Reverend Sir Wesley Hall as he addressed the Barbados Under 17 cricket team who won the regional title in Tobago this year and who were given an appreciation Celebrating Our Champions by sponsors Guardian Group at the Hilton on Friday.
Speaking in his inimitable style interspersed with humour, Sir Wes told the gathering including the cricketers, their friends, parents, Jerry Blenman, chief executive officer, the National Sports Council; Mona Alleyne, assistant director of sport; Nigel Adams, executive manager of Guardian and former manager John Jones that belief in self was a critical ingredient to success in any area.
Outlining his personal experience of gaining a scholarship to Combermere to play cricket and study, Sir Wes indicated that from small he walked around with a bat defying the naysayers that he would attend Combermere and that he would play cricket for the West Indies.
“My parents could not afford to pay for me to attend Combermere but thanks to my training at St Giles I was able to pass the scholarship exams to go on to Combermere where I started as a wicketkeeper/batsman and then became a fast bowler to make the West Indies team.
“I played for the West Indies, I coached them, I managed them, I selected them and I was the first member of the proletariat to become president of the West Indies Cricket Board,” stated the former Minister of Tourism.
Sir Wes pointed to greats like Sir Frank Worrell and Sir Garfield Sobers who started in the West Indies team batting as low as 11 and nine to blossom into some of the greatest batsmen in the world. “The feared Charlie Griffith started as a spinner and the great Malcolm Marshall began as a leg break bowler at Parkinson,” said Sir Wes.
The former WICB president of the WICB then outlined the ten points:
1. Let God be the centre of everything which you do.
2. Cricket is a mind game.
3. Practice makes perfect but you have to practise the right things.
4. Be a winner, but remember the effort to win is just as important as the goal of winning.
5. Be creative and adapt to the changes in the world.
6. Communicate effectively.
7. Know your history as history is the memory of a nation.
8. Knowledge and skill are meaningless without desire.
9. Develop a winning determination; and,
10. Do all nine of those things and you will play for the West Indies.
Adams pointed to his company’s proud association with youth cricket in Barbados with a support of the primary school competition spanning 16 years and the youth team in the Barbados Cricket Association’s matches spanning 31 years.
“For us, as a corporate sponsor, cricket has always been seen as a powerful social interface with the communities we serve in Barbados, if only because of the role the game occupies in the psyche and the history of our people.
“In the specific context of youth cricket, it also affords us the opportunity to expose our young people to the values of team work, fair play, cooperation and how to deal with both success and defeat. By providing them with the right environment and examples, we hope to encourage them to aspire to be good leaders,” Adams said. (KB)
