South East now a cricket force

Teams coming from the south eastern part of Trinidad and Tobago are brimming with talented players and are looking to dominate the local cricket landscape after years in the doldrums. Recently the South East Zone Under-19 cricket team achieved a remarkable feat by beating Central Zone to capture the Unit Trust championship. Previously South East competed in interzone competition but made no impression. However towards the end of the 1990s, Azim Bassarath was installed as chairman of the zone and he started a plan to revive cricket in the largest geographical zone in Trinidad and Tobago.

There the sport moved from being a pastime to serious business. “When I took over the chairmanship of the zone a lot of work was still to be done. I sat down with the executive and we started devising a plan to make cricket in South East attractive at first. We thought that by making the game appealing in the area, the youths will come out and play and we would sooner of later start to produce good cricketers,” Bassarath said. “The Executive of the zone worked tirelessly to see our dream come true with everyone using the same game plan. Soon more and more teams started to play the game and a greater number of youths got involved,” he said. “This was a reverse where you usually find a lot of veterans playing in the zonal competition. The revival started and soon more and more clubs started to apply to the zone to get in. So much so that we were forced to add a Third Division this year. We carded matches but because of the inclement weather and unavailability of grounds we had to scrap the idea and put it off until next season,” Bassarath said.

The zone was able to put out a very strong Under-19 team with the likes of Jason Mohammed and Rishi Bachan in the ranks. The latter is a jewel who played for the West Indies Under-19 team at the ICC Youth World Cup in Bangladesh earlier this year. Both players shone and South East wrestled the title from the grasp of Central who had it since the inception of the tournament four years ago. The zone was also able to put out two good teams for the British Gas tournaments. The Under-15s came in second, while the Under-17s were third. “This past season was another successful year for cricket in South East. We are seeing the hard work of our coaches paying off and the Zonal Council would like to mention Terry Lee and Khairool Ali for their excellent work during the season,” said Bassarath.

“On the biggest pluses coming out this season was the fact that it was evident to all that the gospel of cricket was being spread far and wide in South East. Guayaguayare United won the Division One title and this represented the growth of the game into the rural areas. Previously Guayaguayare winning the zonal title was unthinkable,” he said. South East will celebrate with their prize giving on September 11 at Rio Claro where the town’s most successful son, Jack Warner, a FIFA vice-president will deliver the feature address.