GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana – In a move set to re­shape the fu­ture of West In­dies crick­et, the boards of Guyana and Bar­ba­dos have signed a land­mark agree­ment to launch an an­nu­al Un­der-13 ex­change tour, be­gin­ning in De­cem­ber 2025.

The deal, for­malised by Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) Head Bis­soondyal Singh and Bar­ba­dos Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (BCA) Pres­i­dent Calvin Hope, will see the re­gion’s most promis­ing young tal­ents face off in a five-match se­ries in Guyana from De­cem­ber 12-20.

Both of­fi­cials hailed the ini­tia­tive as a crit­i­cal in­vest­ment in the sport’s grass­roots, em­pha­sis­ing that its val­ue ex­tends far be­yond the bound­ary rope.

“This ex­change be­tween Guyana and Bar­ba­dos is more than just a se­ries of match­es,” Singh stat­ed. “It rep­re­sents a shared vi­sion of nur­tur­ing tal­ent, fos­ter­ing ca­ma­raderie, and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for our young crick­eters to thrive. We are lay­ing the ground­work for a sus­tain­able and com­pet­i­tive fu­ture for Caribbean crick­et.”

Echo­ing this sen­ti­ment, Hope high­light­ed the im­mense de­vel­op­men­tal ben­e­fits for the play­ers. “This pro­gramme of­fers our young­sters in­valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence, ex­po­sure to dif­fer­ent play­ing con­di­tions, and the chance to build friend­ships be­yond our shores,” Hope said. “Ini­tia­tives like this are ab­solute­ly crit­i­cal for de­vel­op­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of tal­ent.”

The tour is a key part of the GCB’s long-term strat­e­gy to strength­en crick­et from the ground up. By cre­at­ing struc­tured in­ter­na­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties at the age-group lev­el, the pro­gramme aims to iden­ti­fy fu­ture stars, equip them with es­sen­tial skills and dis­ci­pline, and es­tab­lish a clear path­way from lo­cal pitch­es to na­tion­al and re­gion­al teams.

This new part­ner­ship with Bar­ba­dos builds on the suc­cess of a sim­i­lar GCB ini­tia­tive with Trinidad and To­ba­go, un­der­scor­ing a com­mit­ted re­gion­al push to re­vive youth de­vel­op­ment.

CMC