Letter to the editor-Youth cricket, an interesting prospect |12 May 2005

Cricket amongst children started way back in the fifties or even earlier. I personally can recall in my school days at the Seychelles College when we had inter-house competitions and even coaching by some expatriate teachers.

One must understand why Seychellois youths do not take this gentleman’s game too seriously. First of all, it is a time-consuming sport (test matches go on for 5 days – ODI 8 hours). Secondly, there is no proper ground in this country to play the game.

In 1963 and 1965, I did take a Seychelles College team to Praslin to play against a team from the Praslin secondary school. I even organised a game against the Anse Boileau school. I was a coach at that time.

As recently as the nineties, Mr Anthony Coster held some coaching sessions for boys every Tuesday and Thursday.  But when I retired as chairman of Seychelles Cricket Association, he did not get the support and finally gave up.

It is always interesting to go back to any sport and give some of its history so that the younger generations can learn what happened in the past.

Let’s hope one day we’ll see a Seychelles side playing at a higher level.

Ayub Suleman Adam