By Barrie Alpha

The Sierra Leone Cricket Association (SLCA) hosted a successful 6v6 Criiio Cricket festival over the weekend at the national stadium’s volleyball and handball courts.

The festival had over 100 boys and girls aged between 8 and 15 years participating in a safe environment, the highest number since the introduction of the Criiio programme. The kids were drawn from different primary and secondary schools across the country.

Explaining the rationale behind the 6v6 Criiio Cricket festival on Saturday, 5th February 2022, the SLCA Development Manager Andrew Foday Kanyako said the 6v6 Criiio programme is an event which broke the barriers and cascaded the game of cricket to young players both male and female as they want to catch them young.

‘We have players at low as 8 years. We want to make sure that cricket is played in all local colonies. It’s a design model of street cricket; it’s a game for beginners and introduction of cricket to new people from the ages of 12 to 15. This is the cricket clinic we took from Kingtom to stadium; and the next will be in Jui,’ said Kanyako. ‘We want to break the barriers which indicate that cricket is a game for the elite and the equipments are very difficult to be accessed. Criiio is to ensure the game plays anywhere at any time and the equipments are very common to access, which is why the game is very popular in Asia. It’s a research done by the ICC. We are trying to improvise to make sure the equipments are very accessible where we use local materials to make the equipment. We’ve used board to make 1000 bats, plastic bats. We are using tennis balls and also we are improving to make local equipments so that we would spread the game in our local communities.’

In his brief statement during the official opening of the two-day festival, Emmanuel Pessima, the Director of Development, Sierra Leone Cricket Association Board, admonished the young players that the purpose of the competition is not only about winning, but about participating so it doesn’t matter whether their teams win or lose, noting that they should play the game in the spirit of cricket, which is more important.

‘You must respect your opponents, your colleagues, your coaches, the umpires and everyone, which is key in the spirit of cricket. On behalf of the SLCA Board I want to declare the six by six Criiio cricket programme open,’ he stated.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SLCA, Philip Amara noted that the festival is for the kids to know that cricket is a unique game they can enjoy. ‘We decided to have this programme for you the kids so that you will know that cricket is a simple game which you will be part of and become very good cricketers,’ he said.