Za­kariyya Mo­hammed will cap­tain a rep­re­sen­ta­tive T&T Un­der-13 crick­et team, set to trav­el to Guyana for a se­ries of match­es in what is a ma­jor de­vel­op­men­tal ini­tia­tive be­tween the re­spec­tive ter­ri­to­r­i­al crick­et boards.

The in­ter-re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort be­tween the TTCB and the Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) is sched­uled from De­cem­ber 10-22 and com­ple­ments the Crick­et West In­dies plans of two-year in­cre­men­tal de­vel­op­ment pro­grams.

It marks the first time a TTCB U-13 squad is go­ing to Guyana and crick­et of­fi­cials are hop­ing that the promis­ing young­sters will be ex­posed to com­pet­i­tive crick­et which will pro­mote their growth and de­vel­op­ment.

Mo­hammed will lead a 17-mem­ber team that in­cludes stand­out play­ers of the Un­der-13 North/South Crick­et Clas­sic ear­li­er this year in Shaan Ram­ta­hal who copped the “Best Bowler” award and “Best Field­er” Jor­dan Julien. Their vice cap­tain is Mikaeel Ali.

The tour is the brain­child of TTCB pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath who saw the ab­sence of an U-13 CWI tour­na­ment as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to of­fer that age group a taste of re­gion­al ri­val­ry.

“I im­me­di­ate­ly got in touch with the GCB pres­i­dent af­ter the lo­cal Sco­tia­bank In­ter Zone U-13 tour­na­ment about the tour and I was very pleased with their en­thu­si­as­tic re­sponse to host us,” said Bas­sarath.

He said that he would like the TTCB to in­vite the Guyana U-13s for a rec­i­p­ro­cal vis­it next year which will fur­ther the close re­la­tion­ship both crick­et boards en­joy in the in­ter­est of na­tion­al youth de­vel­op­ment.

The GCB is al­so ex­pect­ing that the se­ries will be a pre­lude for fu­ture de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes such as the na­tion­al U-15, U-17, and U-19 train­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

In a state­ment laud­ing the vis­it, pres­i­dent of the GCB, Bis­soondyal Singh stat­ed that cur­rent­ly, there are struc­tured crick­et de­vel­op­ment ac­tiv­i­ties for the U-11, U-15, U-17, U-19, and se­nior lev­els.

The U-11 ac­tiv­i­ties are con­duct­ed through the Re­pub­lic Bank Five for Fun Crick­et De­vel­op­ment pro­gramme and ad­di­tion­al­ly, the GCB and Re­pub­lic Bank are in the plan­ning stages of ini­ti­at­ing a Na­tion­al U-23 In­ter-Club Tour­na­ment.

Singh ex­pressed de­light at be­ing able to pos­i­tive­ly en­gage the TTCB’s Bas­sarath.

“Both Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Boards are keen on ex­pos­ing our fu­ture pro­fes­sion­al crick­eters at an ear­ly age to the high­est com­pet­i­tive stan­dards pos­si­ble. We recog­nise the need for chil­dren to de­vel­op their art, bowl­ing, bat­ting, and field­ing in a fun-re­lat­ed man­ner,” he said.

“How­ev­er, we strong­ly be­lieve that play­ers in the Un­der-13 age group can be­gin to chal­lenge their minds a bit more than is cur­rent­ly be­ing done. Learn­ing crick­et tech­niques are good but ex­e­cut­ing the re­spec­tive skills in com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ments will set the play­ers on a greater path to suc­cess,” he said.

The GCB boss says the ini­tia­tive paves the way for a re­gion­al U-13 Tour­na­ment, adding "We be­lieve in pro­mot­ing the train­ing as­pects of crick­et so that play­ers can in­cul­cate the rec­om­mend­ed prac­tices for the game as well as a per­son.

“Our planned crick­et acad­e­my which will cater to the needs of play­ers ages sev­en to 17 is geared at mak­ing our play­ers round­ed crick­eters. In ad­di­tion to tech­ni­cal and skill de­vel­op­ment, our acad­e­my fo­cus­es on ar­eas of Crick­et Laws, Scor­ing, Match Ref­er­ee and Um­pire du­ties, and Eti­quette in­clud­ing Per­son­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, In­ter­view­ing as a pri­or­i­ty ac­tiv­i­ty, and psy­chol­o­gy.”

Bas­sarath point­ed out that the TTCB is in a per­fect place to of­fer sup­port for the GCB’s de­vel­op­ment am­bi­tions as the lo­cal crick­et ad­min­is­tra­tion is well ad­vanced in its de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes which is the en­vy of oth­er ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards.

In an­tic­i­pa­tion of the pro­posed tour, the TTCB se­lec­tors have named a 17-mem­ber squad.

U-13 squad

Bri­an Har­richa­ran, Mikaeel Ali (vice-cap­tain), Shaan Ram­ta­hal, Reyad Jerome, Rober­to Badree, Ethan Ram­cha­ran, Ra’ed Ali-Khan, Sameer Ram­dath, Zion Phillip, Za­kariyya Mo­hammed (cap­tain), Ab­diel Boland, Tyler Ram­roop, Aaden Owen, Jor­dan Julien.

Re­serves: San­jay Naidoo, Am­rit M Pit­ti­man, Avinash Bhemull.