Cricket clinic hailed a success

By Vatapuia Maiava 01 June 2016, 12:00AM

It’s never a dull moment when foreigners see potential in the small Island of Samoa.

That is what led World Cricket member Ross Price back to Samoa.

Joining forces with fellow cricketer John Williams and the Samoa International Cricket Association, they held a week long clinic in Samoa for the young people interested in the sport.

“During the week John Williams and I have come here from Australia to take the 10-13 year olds for a special cricket clinic,” he said during an interview with Samoa Observer.

“Boys and girls have come every evening of the week to practice their skills and on Saturday they played a game to try and put their skills to practice so we got to see just how much they’ve learnt.

“The clinic involved the three main skills of batting, bowling and fielding.”

Mr. Price saw the potential even in the inexperienced children giving them all the necessary attention so that they may learn as much as possible.

“For some of the children it was their first experience with cricket,” he said.

 “So we had to start off with the very elementary stage; but by the end of the week I was really pleased with the top group; they performed their skills very well.

“They might become good Samoan cricketers in the future.”

Mr. Price was already aware of the hunger the children had for the sport of cricket, but nothing prepared him for just how eager the children were to learn.

“Initially on the first night I thought there will be about 40 children here,” he said.

“Then we planned for small groups so we could teach them the skills and 105 turned up.

“So we had to change all our plans but the children have been very well behaved and they have really tried hard to learn their skills, this pleased us greatly.”

According to Mr. Price, everything went smoothly and the lessons were absorbed nicely by the children.

“The only issues we ran into were the occasional raining,” he said.

“But the sun managed to dry up all the rain later in the day which helped a lot; Samoa is simply a lovely country to play cricket in.”

Mr. Price is also here for a separate tournament which involves the not so young generation, but he assures Samoa that it will be an enjoyable event.

“We will be starting the Pacific championships this week and there are 8 teams playing,” he said.

“We will be kicking off on Thursday and after three games there will be semi finals and grand finals.

“On Saturday we will also be playing a T20 competition and we will be putting five Samoan cricketers and five Australian cricketers into one team and they will play a similar team.

“It will be a lovely time for all.”

Mr. Price urges all the young people of Samoa to join cricket because of the amount of joy it brings everyone.

“For those others who want to join cricket the main thing is to try and get involved in school clinics first,” he said.

“When they are enjoying that and learn some skills then they can come along and join the Samoan Association.

“At the moment they are playing games on a Saturday morning so anyone can come along and join in.”

Mr. Price concluded by saying how much he enjoys visiting Samoa.

“I am here for 18 days all together so I have two weeks left in Samoa,” he said.

“This is my third time in Samoa, I came here in September for the Commonwealth games and I enjoyed it so much that I said to the Australian cricket people that Samoa has a pavilion and four cricket grounds all together which is perfect for a tournament.

“So that’s why we came to Samoa; Samoan people are the friendliest people in the world.”

For Luafatasaga Ata, a young girl from Vaiusu and one of the clinic participants, she learnt a lot from Mr. Price and John Williams.

“I learnt a lot with this programme,” she said.

“I want to say thank you to Ross Price and John Williams for giving us the opportunity to learn more about cricket.

“They made learning the sport very easy and they were very kind.”

By Vatapuia Maiava 01 June 2016, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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