Barrackpore shows love to WI legends

Speaking to Newsday, an enthusiastic Ganga elaborated on this year’s charity event by stating, “It was a great success in my estimation, and this was an event which was geared towards funding my scholarship programme which started in 2010.

So far we’ve graduated over 70 students who have been on three-year scholarships and its main focus is assisting the lesser fortunate kids to help develop their academic side of life as well as their extracurricular talents.” He explained that extracurricular does not necessarily mean it’s limited to sport, but also in areas such as arts, culture, theatre and dance to name a few.

He expressed his gratitude to the Barrackpore community and its environs for their continuous support.

“This is a community that has molded me as a young man and it is only fair for me to inspire the current young generation. This event was one for the community as I was able to bring out two of the greatest players to have played for the West Indies in Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul and you do not really find that often so the people of Barrackpore and those who were here got a really special treat to witness these two legends, who did not only play, but batted alongside each other and they both managed to knock half centuries.” Newsday also spoke with cricket legend and record holder for most runs in a Test match (400 not out), Lara, who was also Man of the match for his top-score of 67 runs, leading his team to victory over a Ganga XI.

“It has been a tremendous day, it was great to see so much talent come out, including Lendl Simmons, young Nicholas Pooran and not-so-young Dinanath Ramnarine, along with Shivnarine Chanderpaul coming from Guyana, to support such an event,” Lara declared cheerfully.

The batting maestro continued: “This is not going to be a regular thing as I am 47 years old and it is not every day someone like Daren is going to call you to play a game of cricket, but when the phone rings, you do realise that you have to put your gears back on and enjoy yourself in front of a fantastic crowd.” Lara noted that he only plays a handful of cricket games for the year, as he also thanked the fans for their colossal support towards the charity event. “When I was driving in, I saw the crowd already building and the game was still over an hour away from starting, so I must congratulate the people of Barrackpore for coming out. As always, my team’s intention was to win and entertain the crowd and I am happy we were able to snatch the victory with Shiv smashing the winning runs.” Lara XI won by four wickets, after successfully chasing a target of 179 runs, with the crowds joined the stars on the field for the presentation of awards and the cutting of Ganga’s birthday cake, while singing “happy birthday”.