LI­MA, Pe­ru — A del­e­ga­tion led by Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Pres­i­dent Dr. Kishore Shal­low and Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) Pres­i­dent Kei­th Joseph vis­it­ed Li­ma, Pe­ru, from Feb­ru­ary 21-23, 2025, to dis­cuss and pro­mote in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion for crick­et ahead of the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed 2027 Pan Amer­i­can Games.

The vis­it aimed to strength­en part­ner­ships be­tween na­tions and ex­plore the po­ten­tial in­clu­sion of crick­et in this land­mark event.

Oth­er key par­tic­i­pants in­clud­ed Ren­zo Man­yari Ve­laz­co, pres­i­dent of the Pe­ru­vian Olympic Com­mit­tee (POC); for­mer POC pres­i­dent José Quinones González; Dario Barth­ley, CEO of BMP Sports; and Mo­han Vaswani, Vice Pres­i­dent Crick­et Pe­ru.

The dis­cus­sions fo­cused on ad­vanc­ing crick­et de­vel­op­ment in Pe­ru, fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive train­ing pro­grams, and cre­at­ing ex­change ini­tia­tives to en­hance the sport’s pres­ence in the re­gion.

The del­e­ga­tion al­so ex­plored strate­gies for build­ing the nec­es­sary in­fra­struc­ture to sup­port crick­et’s growth, en­sur­ing that the sport is well-po­si­tioned for in­clu­sion in the 2027 Pan Am Games. This ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward, not on­ly for Pe­ru but al­so for crick­et’s broad­er ex­pan­sion across the Amer­i­c­as.

The en­gage­ment was ini­ti­at­ed by CANOC, with Pres­i­dent Kei­th Joseph em­pha­siz­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of Crick­et West In­dies’ in­volve­ment. He stat­ed: “The im­pact of West In­dies crick­et across the globe is well known. Hav­ing Crick­et West In­dies in­volved in the ef­fort to bring crick­et to the Pan Am Games is cru­cial. This pre­lim­i­nary en­gage­ment marks a sig­nif­i­cant step to­ward re­al­iz­ing that dream.”

Dr. Shal­low ex­pressed op­ti­mism about the dis­cus­sions, high­light­ing CWI’s broad­er vi­sion: “As part of CWI’s strate­gic plan for 2024–2027, ex­pand­ing our mar­ket and ac­cess­ing new de­vel­op­men­tal op­por­tu­ni­ties are crit­i­cal pri­or­i­ties. Pe­ru presents ex­cel­lent prospects, and both par­ties stand to ben­e­fit from col­lab­o­ra­tion."

With the Pan Am Games on the hori­zon, we are en­thu­si­as­tic about crick­et’s in­clu­sion. CWI is ful­ly com­mit­ted and pre­pared to play a key role in bring­ing this vi­sion to life—not just for the Pan Am Games, but al­so as a step­ping stone to the 2028 Olympics.”

Sto­ry im­age

As crick­et con­tin­ues to ex­pand glob­al recog­ni­tion, part­ner­ships like these play a cru­cial role in shap­ing the sport’s fu­ture. The vis­it to Pe­ru marks an im­por­tant mile­stone in strength­en­ing ties be­tween the Caribbean and South Amer­i­ca, paving the way for crick­et’s in­clu­sion on one of the re­gion’s biggest sport­ing stages.

With con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion, in­vest­ment, and strate­gic plan­ning, the idea of see­ing crick­et at the 2027 Pan Am Games and even­tu­al­ly at the 2028 Olympics is clos­er to be­com­ing a re­al­i­ty.

(Cour­tesy CWI Me­dia)