The Rock Hard Cement Cupid Cavaliers have been around for 20 years and gained great success in the Barbados Cricket League’s (BCL) competitions. Last season, they emerged champions in the Garfield Sobers Super League. In this week’s Community Corner, BCL general secretary and club president Wayne Webster speaks to Sunsport’s Ria Goodman.
Cupid Cavaliers have enjoyed a tremendous amount of success in the Barbados Cricket
League. (GP)
GOODMAN: When was the club formed?
WEBSTER: It was formed in 1999.
GOODMAN: What was the reason behind its formation?
WEBSTER: As I understand, it was formed from a club called Sydney, and some members from the former Lears Cricket Club.
They joined together and formed the Cupid Cavaliers.
GOODMAN: What have been some of the club’s major achievements?
WEBSTER: The club was very successful during its first ten years of existence.
It never placed below third in the competition. It won its zone in the competition in 2009 and got promoted to the Premier League the following year and won that as well.
It has won the cup four times out of the seven years it has been in the Gary Sobers Super League. Along the way it also won the Champion Of Champions competition in 2013 where there are about five different zones as well as a knockout competition.
We played unbeaten in that competition and we also played in the T20 but we were beaten in the semi-finals. We usually get to the quarter-finals every year for the last 10 years. We have not lost a preliminary round match even when we were a junior team during the last ten years in the knockouts.
GOODMAN: What has been the contributing factor to the team’s success in the 2018 tournament?
WEBSTER: It was a group effort. It was a line-up that was a mixture of some of the best batsmen in the entire competition and a good bowling combination as well.
We have five or six frontline batsmen. Terry Pilgrim, who is the run scorer for the team, scored about 300 runs. Akani McCollin, who is pretty close to Under-17 selection for Barbados, also did well. There is also a guy called Jamele Blair, who is a Guyanese-Barbadian batsman and Khadafi Cummins, who is an all-rounder. He is pretty outstanding in batting and spin bowling.
There is also Dr Don Marshall, Sylvester Caddle, Anthony Ellis, Xavier Eastmond, an Under-19 and one of the fastest bowlers. We also had Vataly Wilkinson, who also played for the Barbados Defence Force Sports Programme.
He is from the neighbourhood, so he plays for us when he is available. He is about the closest to an Elite player and sometimes we also have Tennyson Roach from Empire.
GOODMAN: Would you say there is a stream of youth filtering into the club as the years go by?
WEBSTER: Sadly, no. Young people are not attracted to Barbados Cricket League (BCL) cricket as in the past and there is a reason for that.
Some (reasons) are actually systemic and the others are because of opportunities. By systemic, what I mean is that there are two major organisations responsible for cricket in Barbados; there is the Barbados Cricket Association and the BCL.
There is no comparison between the resources that exist in the BCA and the BCL. In fact, for the last few years, the BCL has played cricket without any major sponsor, so prize money is nothing to speak about.
If you play BCL cricket, for example, you get about $800 from May to December but it costs about $250 to play cricket a day and you play cricket over 30 days in a year.
That money is made up of paying the groundsman, the umpire, providing the balls and the lunch and cricket-ready conditions which means cutting the grass and so on.
On the other hand, in the BCA competition, they pay the umpires for the clubs, provide balls free and then they win substantial prize money.
The upshot is that players are not really required to pull their pocket to any substantial amount to play cricket in the BCA but they have to finance it in the BCL.
You will find that youngsters are not going to come and play because they have to come and look for $10 or $15 every Saturday when they can go and play BCA free and play on better quality grounds, to some extent, although some of our grounds match those in the BCA.
GOODMAN: What are your hopes for the team?
WEBSTER: My hope is to get into the BCA competition because it is the only way that we would have an opportunity to build on the club and attract more members and then position members to reach the highest level of cricket in Barbados. If you are participating in the BCA competition then you can gravitate towards national and international cricket.
I have the strong view that if we were to get in and given the current structure of BCA cricket in which there is a promotion and demotion type of system we can get close to playing Elite cricket in five years.
The current Cupid Cavaliers can beat any Second Division team in Barbados. So we can go in there and win, get promoted to Intermediate and get close to winning that and again be promoted to First Division.
Once a club gets promoted in those competitions, they will attract other players that will strengthen the existing structure.
My dream is to see us playing Elite cricket in Barbados.
GOODMAN: How long has Rock Hard Cement been a sponsor?
WEBSTER: It’s not possible to have a successful team without private sector support in these times.
They have been our sponsors for the past few years and their support has been invaluable to help us maintain the standard of cricket we have been able to exhibit during that time.
