St Thomas councillor says parish cricket is running on autopilot without pitches or leadership

White Horses Division Councillor Hubert Williams has charged that St Thomas is letting an entire cohort of young cricketers down by failing to invest in the sport’s growth. Speaking at Thursday’s monthly sitting of the St Thomas Municipal Corporation, he said cricket in the parish is effectively being left to run without direction.

The exchange followed a wider discussion on worsening cricket facilities, the disappearance of structured parish-wide competitions, and confusion over which arm of government should now drive the game locally. Williams, who has long backed and contributed to cricket in St Thomas, told members the sport has slipped over recent years because of weak funding and no coherent long-range plan.

“It is sad that today we’re speaking here and we don’t have one good cricket pitch, not one good cricket ground in this parish,” he said. “I don’t know if anybody can name one. We have some that we are trying with…and don’t tell me about Springfield and Heartease because Springfield is not a cricket pitch, and you can’t have a cricket pitch where footballers run over it. The last pitch we had that was a good pitch was the one over Good Year [Cricket Oval] — and it is now destroyed.”

The debate was sparked when Darlene McCalla, the parish field supervisor for the Social Development Commission (SDC), outlined why the commission is not staging its cricket competition in St Thomas this year. McCalla cited financial pressure and the ongoing fallout from Hurricane Melissa. She said the SDC no longer sits under the ministry that oversees sport and must lean heavily on private sponsors to put events on.

“One of our biggest sponsors was J Wray and Nephew, but because of the policy that you must have at least four schoolboys they said J Wray and Nephew cannot sponsor us anymore. So, since we lost that sponsorship we have been taking a battering,” she explained.

McCalla added that Lasco Finance, the HEART/NSTA Trust, and another corporate partner helped fund activities last year, but firms are now wary after storm damage. “So because we get sponsors from corporate, they are now looking down that side that was damaged by Melissa, so hence we didn’t get any funding this year,” she told the chamber.

Williams pushed back, saying Hurricane Melissa cannot keep serving as an excuse for the absence of organised cricket in the parish while other parts of national life carry on. He argued that young players are being sidelined.

“We’re not postponing CXC this year because of Melissa so we can’t become a nation that is only looking at the youth who might be bright in the classroom but the cricketers are left behind; it can’t be like that.”,” he said. “ He warned that the neglect of grass roots cricket could have long-term consequences for talented youngsters whose futures may depend on sports. “We’re really killing the future of maybe a future millionaire here,“ he said. ”Melissa happened last year. All of us as politicians and as civil servants are still getting paid this year even though Melissa happened, so we cannot continue blaming Melissa. We know she’s a bad girl but we left her a long time ago; we have to move on.”

He said any revival must start with fit-for-purpose grounds, insisting no credible programme can last without at least one high-standard pitch. “Now, I believe it only makes sense — and if we want to move cricket forward in the parish — is to ensure that we at least have one good pitch where a youngster can feel proud to have a match. And I really expect SDC to lead the process in reviving cricket in the parish — and everybody who ever played cricket and is a supporter of cricket knows that we can’t have good cricket without a good cricket ground,” he said.

McCalla later noted that cricket has not vanished from St Thomas altogether, pointing out that the St Thomas Cricket Association continues to stage matches outside the SDC’s programme. Williams still held that the deeper problem is the lack of steady leadership and a structured pathway for developing the sport.

“I’m saying over the last, maybe, half of a decade SDC has been the organisation that steers the cricket competitions. Now if for some reason SDC is unable to continue I think the discussion must be had in terms of the future of our cricket and which agency of government is going to lead the process. It can’t be a thing where we just leave it on autopilot like that,” he said.