Supporters Club for cricketers

THE Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board have established a Supporters Club. It was launched yesterday at Kam Po Restaurant, Ramsaran Street, Chaguanas, at a Breakfast  Meeting  at which members of the business community were present. Also in attendance was West Indies all rounder, Dwayne Bravo in whose honour the function was organised. He was joined by  five other talented young Trinidad and Tobago cricketers —  Sherwyn Ganga, Tishan Maraj, Dinesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul and Jonathan Augustus. President of the TTCB, Ellis Lewis said the aim of the Supporters Club is to encourage people to play a significant role in supporting the young cricketers who are now developing a winning culture. “We have to go beyond the boundary and enlist the assistance of the public to be part of the developmental process that are now beginning to bear fruits after some years of hard work, commitment, strategies, training,  mental preparedness all-round discipline,” Lewis said. “This is a period when we are beginning to develop a great relationship to promote TT cricket and consequently West Indies Cricket,” he said.

Co-ordinator of the Supporters’ Club, former national opening batsman, Suruj Ragoonath, who is the board’s Marketing Officer said that TT’s cricket graph was pointing in the direction of an upward movement which started in the late 1990s. “Our superior performance in the Under-15 regional tournament for three successive years started this, and it was underlined in 2000 with our victory in the world tournament in the United Kingdom under the captaincy of Tishan Maraj, and which also included several Trinidadians,” Ragoonath said. He pointed out that in the last World Under 19 Tournament in Bangladesh, under the captaincy of TT’s Dinesh Ramdin, the team which included six Trinidadians (Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul, Rishi Bachan, Jonathan Augustus, Lendl Simmons, and Tishan Maraj), were  runners-up. “This spoke volumes for the youngsters,” he said. To become a member of the Supporters’ Club, one would have to pay $1,000 annually and this would entitle members to certain privileges and a jersey that will easily identify members of the group. For further information contact Suruj Ragoonath at 678-7215.