By Neto Baptiste
The Pigotts Sports Club on Tuesday benefitted from a donation of cricket gear from High Commissioner for Antigua and Barbuda to the United Kingdom, Karen-Mae Hill, who partnered with the London-based Merchant Taylors’ School and others to source and ship the gifts to Antigua.
Crushers, who will take on rivals Empire Nation in the semifinal round of the local Two Day Cricket Competition this weekend, received batting pads, wicket-keeping pads, helmets, bats, coaching equipment as well as youth development items to include plastic bats and wickets among other cricket items.
Hill, in making the presentation at the club’s home venue in Pigotts on Tuesday afternoon, urged the players to utilise the equipment well, while pledging to continue playing her part in ensuring the development of players and the sport.
“They have, with my help and the help of another family called the Fairweathers, collected some cricket gear to support the Pigotts Sports Club and so we shipped these down and hope that you’ll make good use of them. Keep beating everybody, maybe except for Potters because that’s where I am from, but Merchant Taylors’ School wanted to say a massive thank you,” she said.
“Essan Warner and Uri Smith have both been to England on the exchange programme and I think there will be a couple more this year because we want to get young people up to England every year to spend the summer and do some sports. The Merchant Taylors’ School wants to support and other places want to support, so I hope that you’ll keep doing positive things, keep doing your technique, your ability. We want to see some of you on the West Indies team because it needs all the help it can get and I think the more Antiguans the better,” the High Commissioner added.
President of Pigotts Sports Club, Bakesha Francis-James, thanked Hill for the gesture while also underscoring the body’s enthusiasm towards possible future partnerships.
“On behalf of Pigotts Sports Club, we would like to say thank you for your timely donation and we look forward to many more and a collaborative effort between us and the school as well as you as the high commissioner, thank you,” she said.
Crushers finished at the top of the standings in the Two Day Competition with 88 points following the preliminary round which ended last Sunday.
